Walking Higher
by Faith Accompli
Summary: Ginny's fifth year. She feels ignored and unloved, so she does what any irrational teenage witch would do: bring back a sociopathic young dark lord who tried to kill her. Of course, this time she's in complete control of the situation. Really.
1. Chapter 1

**Walking Higher**  
by Faith Accompli.

**NOTE FOR SELECTIVELY PEDANTIC FANGIRLS REGARDING THE GINEVRA THING:** Look, I shouldn't have to do this, because you should all have brains, but clearly not quite everyone was in line when they were passed out. **I know that JKR has said Ginny's name is Ginevra. I also know that JKR made this announcement in _2004_. If you look at the 'published' date on this it's clearly at LEAST from 2003, and if you looked at the following author's note you'd know that it was started in April 2002. With that said, PLEASE DO NOT REVIEW IF THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO SAY IS THAT HER NAME IS GINEVRA/GINVERA/GINNYHAHA. I _know_ what her name is canonically. I am NOT altering Walking Higher to become more canon-compliant. It would mean I had to rewrite a large portion of the story, or stop writing it entirely because to be honest, look - Ginny's bringing Tom Riddle back from the dead. Is there anything _canon_ that implies she'd do it again after the last trauma? So those of you who plan to review just to say that her name is Ginevra... please don't bother, I KNOW. Please just press the nice _alt_ key and the _F4_ key at the same time, and we'll all be a lot happier.** Disclaimer: Hogwarts is the brainchild of Rowling. Most characters also belong to her, I'm just bastardising them for my own pleasure. A scant handful belong to me, mostly those who're throwaway or unnamed minor appearances with last names nicked from other Rowling-owned characters. The title is stolen from a song of that name by Heather Nova.  
So, I started this horrid beast of a story some... checks Wow, only April last year? How time drags when you're writing a WIP. Anyway, I'm cleaning it up now and it's been edited and elaborated on. It hasn't been altered to fit with OotP canon, though, because I'm not completely mad and that might break my story. Christ, my writing was dreadful early last year-and so really, thank you everyone who reviewed th' fic in its prior incarnation.

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It started harmlessly enough. 

Enough, of course, was relative from Virginia Weasley's perspective.

She'd once had a crush on Harry Potter-famous Harry Potter-in her first year at Hogwarts. Before that, even, when Ron had arrived home from his first year and all he could talk about was fabulous Harry and their friend Hermione, after he hadn't bothered to come home at Christmas to see _her_.

The little fact that she had instead gone to Romania to visit Charlie meant nothing, of course; it interfered with her version of events and had to be generally dismissed. Besides, if Ron _had_ wanted to, he could have gone with them. She had been Ron's tagalong sister because Percy was too prefect-y to follow around all the time and he had a girlfriend anyway, and the twins...only someone with a wish for death followed _them_ around for extended periods of time. So she'd stalked Potter in her first year, had generally been ignored by all and sundry, and had become bemired in trouble that wasn't neck-deep but rather so far above her that she couldn't see the surface.

Now she was fifteen, two months into her fifth year at Hogwarts, and it had long been time to put that admiration and longing aside.

If she thought about it, she hadn't really loved Potter since she had come to know him. She hadn't loved him in the first place, because she had been just a child. She'd worshipped the ground that he walked on, yes, but it hadn't been _real_. Instead, it had been something to... cling to. He was a boy her mother approved of, and he had saved her from a basilisk and Tom in her first year.

Harry had been nice enough to her, certainly, particularly when desperate for a date to the Yule Ball. It had been a last resort for him, after Cho had turned him down. Neville had already asked her to go with him, though, after Hermione had declined because she was going with Viktor, and Ginny had accepted his invitation. Honour wouldn't let her agree to Harry's later request and tell Neville she'd had a better offer, and for all that Neville couldn't dance he'd been happy to let her wander off after a few rounds in search of a better partner. He'd been using her so he wouldn't show up at the dance alone, but she'd been using him, too, and lorded her attendance over the other Gryffindors in her year for weeks after. There was no malice on either side, and Neville was a nice boy, if a little slow.

It was her fourth year that her childhood dreams had come true, only for her to realise they weren't what she wanted at all. Harry had turned to her for... affection, she supposed, but she had been stupid, naïve, and eager to please. Not so eager to please that she listened to his breathless words of affection, went weak at the knees, and raced him to his bedroom-even if the thought of Ron being in the next bed over wasn't enough to clamp her legs shut, the thought of being known as the school broom and the realisation that she didn't even enjoy it when Harry kissed her and fumbled in her shirt were _more_ than sufficient to make up her mind for her.

When Cho recovered from the broken heart she'd been left with after Cedric Diggory's death, helped in large part by counselling sessions with Dumbledore and-of all people-_Trelawney_, Cho seemed to think it natural that she would have Harry, in spite of the year's age-difference between them and the social stigma that usually accompanied those relationships in school when the girl was older.

Harry had thought it natural, too, and Ginny had-to all outward appearances-gracefully stepped to the side, knowing Harry's heart wasn't hers, and that it would be too much to cling to him. It wasn't so much that she even wanted him; deep down inside herself where her innermost thoughts dwelled, the ones that she only dared touch in the still of the night, she did not love Harry, and she didn't want to be with him. She didn't begrudge him whatever happiness he thought he could have with Cho, but it was the principle of the thing. Harry had told _her_ that they were over, she hadn't been the one to tell _him_. Her resentment was a juvenile and childish fit of pique, but she was a teenage witch, and such things were really to be expected.

Still, Ginny had been well on her way to putting it in the past and moving on, when she had stumbled upon a half-dressed Harry and Cho in the girls' prefects' bathroom. She had entered with the innocent intent of taking a bath after Quidditch practice-and a rather sad practice at that-just in time to catch an eyeful of mostly-naked Harry and completely-naked Cho, both things she could have lived without seeing. Ever.

The head girl had snapped for her to get out despite Ginny's every right to be there as a Gryffindor prefect-which gave her more right to be there than _Harry_ had, after all. Ginny had walked away, deciding that the climb up five flights of stairs to use a bathroom in the tower was better than having to wait for Cho and Harry to finish up and leave. All things considered, she really preferred to wait until the house-elves sterilised the occupied bathroom before she used it again.

It was so _irritating,_ truly, to never be seen at her full value by her peers. She doubted that she saw them for their true worth either, but not for lack of trying-once. There was a good reason she hadn't been put into Hufflepuff, after all. Hard work? Not her style, not when she could con someone else into doing it. Between Percy's help and Tom's in her first year, she didn't think she'd done a single _bit_ of her own homework, save for throwing in a few careful spelling errors after Tom had done her draft copies.

That help-that help and that hindrance, for she never needed to copy notes from others in her class, or barter their assistance in one of her worst subjects for her help with one of theirs-had ensured she hadn't socialised much in her first days at Hogwarts-not that Riddle had wanted her to be one of the giggly girls with never a moment for him. He'd told her she was better than they were, Percy had told her she was better than they were, and she'd believed them. After the vital first-meetings stage was over, she'd become far too arrogant to make the effort of befriending members of the same sex. Come to think of it, she was still that way, though nowadays she hid it well with the excuse of shyness.

She'd driven the final nail into the coffin by her second month at Hogwarts, and by the time her second year rolled around it had become obvious that there would be no exhumation of the corpse of her social life. She'd briefly tried to make friends with her fellow housemates with _no_ success. Word of her possession had spread like wildfire because no one could keep a secret in Gryffindor, and they'd probably spent the entire holidays giggling about what had happened to Nose-In-The-Air Weasley. Even if they hadn't, they'd been scared of her-suspecting that some shade of Riddle lingered within her tortured little mind, just waiting to jump out and Avada Kedavra them. She'd laughed bitterly to herself at the time she'd overheard that, but it shouldn't have been such a tempting thought in retrospect.

Boys were much easier to understand, even when they were annoying dickheads like Potter.

Colin Creevey was always friendly enough with her, maturing and getting over his own worship of Harry sometime between their fourth year and their fifth, but he wasn't a girl. He and his best friend William were good; they welcomed her company whenever she chose to bestow it on them, as they were the only boys in their year and all the years below who could convince a pretty girl to sit with them of her own free will, but sometimes their chatter could drive her mad. She was just too picky, that was her problem.

After all, the only girl friends she did have were Hermione and Emeryth Zabini, and the latter was a _Slytherin,_ too, which all in all made for a dire lack of company when her brother, Harry and Hermione were off saving the world, or when Ginny was in any class but Potions, and in that gap between dinner and bedtime when they were supposed to be safely tucked up in their common room.

What she wanted, she realised as she disrobed and stepped into the steaming tub that she had just drawn, was someone who _understood_ her again.

Again...

Again like Tom Riddle.

Before he'd started possessing her and making her think she had lost her mind, at any rate.

Riddle just had to ruin it for himself-and her. He had started off as a nice boy, like a brother who _didn't_ desire to torment her every spare minute of the day, like a brother who had the time to listen. If he'd only _stayed_ that way, she could have... would have... might have liked...

It occurred to Ginny for half a second as she washed her hair that this kind of rationalisation was one of the seven steps to madness, but that wasn't a helpful thought at all, so she dismissed it with scorn. There was little point to her musing on the subject of Tom Riddle anyway; Harry had killed him, killed the diary.

Two boys superficially so similar, in both looks and upbringing. Why had Harry turned out so noble and good, and such an absolute wanker, when Tom had gone... so wrong? What had been the turning-point for Tom?

Why was she beginning to _miss_ Tom, of all things? He had been evil, he had wanted to torture and kill Muggleborn students, he had-

he had been her friend, and although he had failed her... in a way, through some twisted use of logic, she had failed him too. She couldn't have been the best of company for a boy of sixteen who'd been trapped in a book for upwards of fifty years. She had been horribly self-obsessed and hadn't given a thought to being what _he_ needed her to be, when he'd done everything he could that she'd asked of him.

She could have done something, she could have changed the outcome if only she'd been a little older, a little wiser. Even now she didn't think she wanted to have helped him kill Harry (although if she'd thought about it just half an hour earlier her answer could have been quite different), but there had to have been something she could have done if she'd only known what. If she could have influenced him as much as he influenced her, they could have come to a compromise, they could have found a way.

Hell, Harry had fought Voldemort in one incarnation or another _five times_ and lived, the first time robbing Voldemort of nearly all his power and reducing the Dark wizard to a half-dead shell of a man. If Harry could do that at barely a year old, there had to have been something she could have done at the grand age of eleven going on twelve. If she had another chance...

_She could bring him back, she could change him, she could make him good,_ an eerie little voice whispered behind her ear, the thought rattling through her brain like the Hogwarts Express. _She could give him another chance._

Another chance. Draco's father had been the reason the diary found its way into her hands. Professor Dumbledore had assured her parents that the diary had been destroyed, all traces of Tom erased, but did he _know_ that? Voldemort had a way of showing up again when the general populace assumed him dead. Perhaps it was time to wander down to the dungeons and waylay the heir to the Malfoy arrogance.

.

"I'm sorry, Weasel, I thought I misheard you asking for Riddle's diary back." Draco smirked carelessly, leaning against the wall in a casual fashion that he knew would annoy her just that little bit more and keep her off-balance a second or two longer.

"I did, Ferret. Your father can hardly need it, and I want it back. As a... keepsake." Ginny crossed her arms determinedly, glaring up at Malfoy and despising his greater height, although she would look quite the freak were she approaching six foot two. Her shyness had dropped quickly around him when she reached fifth-year and prefectship, which she had acquired for the sole purpose of getting in sarky comments without worrying about his feelings. Between them, they had settled for an apathetic mutual animosity without the venom of her brother's relationship, such as it was, with Malfoy.

"And I was born yesterday." He didn't believe a word of her story, and rightfully so. She was lying her arse off in a spectacularly bad fashion that was definitely not up to her usual standard of twisted tales, but if she'd planned to deface the diary, defecate on it, or throw it out the window, she would have probably come up with a more convincing story than 'give it to me, I want it'.

"You have no use for it. I have a use for it."

"Why should I give it to you, though? You're missing one simple point here-you're a Gryffindor. Whatever in the world would possess me to do something _you_ wanted? You couldn't pay me enough to make it worth my while to spit on you if you were on fire."

"Ever the charmer," Ginny snorted, glancing away. "Emeryth should be able to vouch for the fact that I'm not quite so despicable as the rest of my house, and for Christssakes, Draco, your father gave it to me the _first_ time and it _worked_ then."

"I'll want something in return for asking him." Seeing her start to nod, Draco raised a hand. "Uh-uh-uh. Note I said 'for _asking_ him'. I make no promises that I can actually obtain it."

"What do you want then?"

Oh, this could be _very_ useful to him. If nothing else, it would serve to annoy Pothead, his Weasel and his Mudblood... if he chose to let them know. "I've not decided yet. Shall we just say... a favour? No time limit, I warn you. You may end up owing me for years."

"One favour. Not sexual," Ginny stipulated, holding out her hand for him to shake.

"My dear little Weasel, _that_ I have Pansy for." He shook her hand slowly, not releasing her fingers until the very last second, at which point he nodded, turned on his heel, and returned to the Slytherin common room, leaving Ginny to find her way back to Gryffindor alone.

.

"Ginny, who's writing to _you?_" Ron asked his little sister in surprise a week and a half later, on a peaceful but chilly Saturday midmorning, after a snowy owl larger than Hedwig swooped down over her. It dropped a brown-paper parcel in her lap, taking care not to clip her breakfast plate with it, then snatched a kipper from Natalie's plate beside her and winged its way out the open doors again.

Ginny gave him a look of disdain and tucked the parcel into a pocket, catching Draco's eye over the tables and nodding nigh-imperceptibly in thanks. He nodded in return, glancing away as quickly as she did to ensure no one noticed their acknowledgement of each other.

"That's for me to know and you never to find out, Ronnie." Honestly, who the hell did he think he was? Her only remaining brother at school, of course, but she didn't have to listen to him. Bill and Charlie she respected, and she'd practically worshipped Percy as a small child, but Ron had nowhere near their authority.

"Ginny, I'm _family!_ I'm the only family you have here, what with the twins graduating last year. C'mon, if you don't tell _me_ who _are_ you going to tell?" Ron pleaded. If she wasn't going to let him know, she could at least be gracious enough to tell him who he could go to for information.

"Absolutely no one. Have a lovely day." Ruffling his hair cheerfully, she sidestepped his grab for her pockets with the ease borne of living with six brothers, ducked out past the seventh-year Gryffindors, and flashed a cheerful sneer at Cho where the head girl sat at the top of Ravenclaw table as she went out the doors toward the stairs.

She reached Gryffindor Tower only twenty minutes later-brilliant timing, considering that it included a detour to ask Professor Flitwick about the correct pronunciation for the Vigoro-Denuo charm. The tiny professor had ensconced himself in his office with tea, scones and books to sit out the morning away from the rabble and get some reading done himself, but he'd been more than happy to help a student out who needed to know more about an obscure charm.

Her speed kind of impressed her, even if she did say so herself, and she ran up the last stairs to get to her dormitory, flinging the door open and slamming it shut once there, and hugging the tiny parcel closely the entire way. She knew what she was doing now, even though the future aspects of the plan were murky. She knew what she'd be doing in the next ten minutes, and after that, things would take care of themselves. She was brave, and she was smart. She had grown up now, and she remembered Tom Riddle's mode of operation. He would be the same as before. Maybe he would have lost his memory of her, and even if he hadn't then she'd just try her hand at Obliviating a book.

Sprawling over her bed and knocking the curtains back down with her foot, she ripped the parcel-paper carefully away from its contents. Her stomach did a nasty flip-flop as she pulled the last scraps of brown away to reveal the black book with a gaping hole right through it: the source of her nightmares, the cause of some of her wildest dreams before-

Faced with the harsh reality before her, Ginny wasn't even sure she _could_ fix it. But a simple Reparo should do the hole, then she could reanimate it. Professor Flitwick had given her the strangest look when she had asked about the charm; she'd explained it off as a torn family picture she needed to fix before her brother found out, and he had bought it.

Did she _want_ to fix the diary? What if she-

_Of course she wanted to fix it. Everyone deserved a chance to live, to right their wrongs._

The basilisk was dead. From what she had read of the spell, chances were that diary-Tom Riddle would return with absolutely no memory of her, only of his own thoughts until the point of diary-creation.

This was proof, she decided as the hole mended itself under her wandtip; proof that she was a competent witch, not a stupid little girl any more. And as she cast the reanimation charm on the book, she decided that it was also proof that she was an _accomplished_ witch. Not everyone could do that charm, even adults often had trouble. Flitwick had made her promise that if she couldn't perform it successfully she was to bring the photo to his office and he would help, but the green sparkle, the green glow that shimmered around the book told her that she had done it.

The book soaked up the green light greedily, radiating heat in turn that made her drop it to her bedcovers. Grabbing it carefully with the woollen gloves that lay at the end of her bed, she waved it in the air before it scorched the heavy red-gold linen covers. She hoped it wouldn't spontaneously combust in her hand and leave her with unsightly scarring, though she looked on the heat as being... fitting. Tom was a lot like playing with fire, but this time she didn't plan to get burned.

It was half an hour before the book had cooled sufficiently inside to turn the pages without discomfort, and she stared at those blank pages for another half-hour before she could finally bring herself to put quill to paper.

_'Hello? My name is Ginny.'_

Slowly, inexorably, ink leeched from her words to sink into the page and reappear in new shapes.

Hello, Ginny, my name is Tom Riddle. Tell me about yourself?

He didn't know a thing about her! Success! And this meant she didn't have to hasten an Obliviate spell, although she would be watching him very carefully for some time yet. He couldn't just reach out and take her, though that worry had crossed her mind once or twice. Last time... last time she had poured her heart and soul into him. This time she was on her guard.

_'I go to Hogwarts. I'm fifteen. I just started keeping a diary again today...'_

And I'm it? I'm glad...

He was flattering her shamelessly, but she didn't really mind. He had been ever charming with her, up until the last. Ginny giggled in exhilaration, rolling over onto her back and leaving the diary and quill where they lay, her arms free to hug herself in pure joy. She had done it, she had Tom again, and she could make him better-she would keep him this time.

With her head turned away from the diary, however, she missed seeing Tom's next words in a black-green ink that wasn't quite like her own. He had told her once that he was aware of what happened around the diary to some extent, but that thought didn't occur to her now. She was caught up with her own triumph, and rationality had abandoned her for the time being.

I'm glad you brought me back, little Ginny Weasley. So very, very glad... I'm still part of you, you know, and you will be mine.

By the time she rolled back, the words had faded to be replaced with How do you like Hogwarts? I went when I was eleven myself.

Ginny idly chewed on the end of her quill as she decided how to answer.

_'It's...'_


	2. Chapter 2

**Walking Higher**

By Faith Accompli.

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Notes; Um. Second chapter returning, not so much alteration made to this one as there was to the first. And thank you to everyone who reviewed, I _do_ appreciate...oh, isolde? Long reviews are not annoying in the least.  
Disclaimer; Characters property of J.K Rowling.

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"Ginny? Are you in there?" 

There were loud thumpings, then the voice called out again.

"_Ginny!_"

It was Hermione. Hermione was calling out to her from beyond the locked dormitory door. Why was she-oh. Ginny had fallen asleep on her bed. She still felt tired, which was definitely odd considering she hadn't been at all sleepy when she had been writing to Tom-and she'd left their diary out! Damn, damn, da...the door was locked. She didn't remember exactly what point she'd locked it at, but so long as everyone _else_ was outside...

"Just a minute!" she called quickly, hiding her inkbottle and quill under her pillow with little thought for the bedclothes they might stain. Ginny tucked the diary into her shirt as she scrambled up and ran quickly to the door before Hermione took it into her head to break it down, pulled it open and assumed a tired look. She gazed out at Hermione slowly, blinking and stifling a yawn. "S'amatter?"

"Oh...you were asleep?"

"No, Hermione, I was practising tantric sex with Professor Snape." She yawned again, this time unfeigned, and managed a smile at Hermione's expression of disgust. "Kidding. Yes, I was asleep, what's wrong?"

Hermione frowned, glancing around Ginny to see the empty and clean room. "Ron was worried about you. Then you weren't in the common room, so I came up to check..."

"I was fine. Am. Am fine. I got a letter from Selene at Beauxbatons and came up to answer it immediately, but I fell asleep." Brushing her hair back with a flick of her hand, Ginny leaned against the doorframe, tucking a foot back so as not to trip one of her dorm-mates who hurried through into the bathroom.

"You have a friend at Beauxbatons?" Hermione looked surprised, stepping aside to let another girl rush past after the first.

"We've been writing to each other for over a year." The lie came easy to Ginny's lips, a story sprung of a half-second's grasp for excuse to cover the delivery of the diary by Narcissa Malfoy's owl (a much less showy bird than that of Draco's father, but beautiful in an understated way). She supposed herself lucky in that her brother and Hermione finally cared little enough about goings-on with the Malfoys that they didn't recognise the bird that appeared every fortnight with sweets, money or whatever else Narcissa decided her son should need. Hermione's expression had moved to acceptance, and the older girl nodded.

"So...if that's all...can I go now?"

"Why don't you come down to the common room? You look pale, some-"

"Some warm, dry air that's been in and out of other people's lungs for the last few hours would do me good?" Ginny interrupted flippantly, forcing another smile although going downstairs to be surrounded by noisy, chattering children was the _last_ thing she desired at that time.

"Er...exactly. And lunch is in an hour, you can't miss that."

"Yes, Mum." Crossing the room to where her bag lay, Ginny grabbed at the first blank parchment she could find, her spare quill and the bottle of blue ink that had wedged itself into her Transfiguration book. She had said she'd fallen asleep: if starting a letter to 'Selene' was necessary to keep the deception flawless, she would start one. It wouldn't matter if she got as far as 'Dear Selene' and then stared blankly at the parchment as if lost for words, when really she thought of what to tell Tom next.

Inevitably she _would_ have to tell him about their...past, she couldn't keep it from him forever, but that could wait for some time. Supplies in hand and the warm weight of her diary against her skin, hidden by layers of shirt and Weasley sweater in a shade of blue that her mother claimed 'brought her eyes out', she was still thinking on that as she entered the common room and claimed an unused armchair near her brother. What was the point of bringing out one's eyes? They would look something approaching grotesque hanging out of the eye-sockets, bouncing about when one walked...

What was she to do with Tom now, though? She'd steered clear of saying anything to do with his older self, or of her first year at Hogwarts, but she had mentioned being appointed a prefect, and he had seemed proud of her. She took that one with some scepticism, but _maybe_ she was being too suspicious. When he had asked how she came by the diary, she had said she got it from a Slytherin. He had told her that he had been a Slytherin, and they discussed the anti-Slytherin sentiment that had been as prevalent in Tom's time as it was in her own. That was...the last thing she remembered. She must have drifted off at that point, leaving Tom hanging. Hopefully he wouldn't be too annoyed...

"Just one game, Hermione?" Her brother's voice interrupted her thoughts, and she looked up to see him pleading with Hermione, chess set under his arm.

"Ron, much as I'd dearly love to kick your arse, I have two chapters of Arithmancy to do by next week, and I would like to get started..." Hermione reached up to pat him consolingly on the shoulder. "After I get a chapter done, I promise I'll play one game with you. Chess...or whatever else you decide on."

Ron brightened considerably at her words, but whined nonetheless. "But what do I do now?"

"I'll play." Ginny spoke up then. "Chess, not anything else." It would be a sure thing to reassure her brother that all was right with her world, make him believe that she was fine and not to _worry_ about her. He was more overprotective of her now than he had been after she and Harry had gone down their separate paths. Of course, the onus was on him now to be Big Brother, Fred and George having come down hard on Harry last year for his preference of Cho over her.

It had been a rough few months for poor, poor Harry, with some sort of embarrassing prank or another unleashed on him every few days. The twins had even given up tormenting Professor Snape for a month to focus their undivided attention on making Harry realise how stupid he had been, their sacrifice showing how much they truly cared. The burden of the little sister rested solely on Ron's shoulders this year, and he was trying.

Great gods, oh how he was trying.

"You will?" Ron wasted no time being surprised, kicking a chair around to face hers and dragging a small table over. "You can play white."

"I'd rather play black." She demurred, taking a handful of the dark red pieces and setting them out on the board despite their shrill protests. The white players were cheering for their part, finally looking forward to a win.

She had a surprise coming for them. She hoped. She did feel clever-she had worked advanced magic that day, she had gotten what she wanted from a Malfoy even though she would have to pay later, and she had someone who would listen to her. Someone who had very little choice about it, if she was feeling malicious.

Ron advanced a pawn two squares, and she mirrored his action one pawn over, moving it forward two squares as she spoke. "You'n Hermione seem happy enough. Picture of domestic bliss and all that rubbish. Where's the boy wonder?"

Ron snorted, moving his king diagonally into the space left by his pawn. The white king cheered, waving his crown and squeaking death-threats at the red king. "Probably off shagging Ch..." He froze, biting his lip as Ginny moved another pawn forward, freeing her knight.

"Worry not, dear brother." She grinned, genuine laughter at things Ron didn't know spilling free for a second. "I'm not after Harry anymore. It was a childish crush and last year only proved it."

That she had found enjoyment in George and Fred's toying with Harry's dignity at first was telling, she thought, and she really hadn't cared enough to protest their treatment of him even after a month and a half, when Ron had told them to cut it out already because it was upsetting Hermione. "I couldn't give a stuff who's ink he dips his quill into."

"Ginny! Maybe we should set you up with a nice boy, then. Someone with a less dirty mind than your own. What about Justin from Hufflepuff? He's not seeing a girl right now..."

"He's gay, Ron. I'd be bloody surprised if he was to take up with a girl. Ever." Ginny moved her queen out diagonally, her move barely noticed by her brother in light of her words.

"Oh. Huh. That Ravenclaw git, Terry?"

"Attatched at the tongue to Blaise Zabini. I think they're engaged." She moved her rook a space after Ron manoeuvred his own rook free on the other side of the board. "I'm happier as I am for now, touching as the concern is."

"You sure?" He moved another pawn forward one, falling back in shock as she moved her queen.

Adroitly capturing his king in one fell swoop of the red wood queen who shrieked a war-cry as it brained the white king with its crown, Ginny sat back in satisfaction. "Yes. I win."

"That's...how did you...? You always-"

"Sucked at chess? I've watched you and 'Mione enough to know exactly what you do-and exactly what not to do myself."

"I heard that, Ginny!" Hermione called from the table at which she had her books and work spread out.

"You were meant to!" she answered, finding her quill and ink from where they had slipped down into the crack of the armchair and putting them into her back pocket. "And I'm starving, so I'm going to mope about in the hall until the elves magic up our lunch. Seeya there."

Sauntering out, leaving her brother watching after her in either awe or pique, Ginny hurried once the portrait closed behind her. If she made good time she'd be able to hide in a wall-alcove for five minutes or so before the lunch gathering began, enough time to apologise to Tom and promise to write more as soon as lunch was over and she'd found somewhere private enough.

She hadn't been lying about her hunger, even though her explanation of just how she'd managed to beat Ron had been pure bullshit. Usually she lost focus after the third or fourth move in a game, but she'd set Ron off on the wrong foot by making him start on the offensive, and it had just...fallen into place.

Glancing around furtively and finding the second-floor corridor she was in to be empty, she walked toward the nearest window, this a wide-ledged one with curtains draping over to keep out the cold in winter months. It being almost December, the thick velvet curtains were pulled shut, leaving her to pull them aside and haul herself up carefully so as not to scrape her knees or bash an elbow. Once she was tucked onto the windowsill she let the curtains fall again, pulled out her quill and dipped it into the blue ink.

_'Tom? Tom, are you still there? It's Ginny.' _

Ginny! Are you all right? You went silent and never came back...

_'I'm sorry, I fell asleep. I guess I must've been tired without knowing it.' _

It's fine. I was worried about you. Don't feel bad about it; I've been here for over fifty years without anyone to talk to, I can wait an hour for you to sleep. 

_'I'll try to let you know next time I have the urgent need to pass out, Tom. And I have to go now, it's lunch time in a few minutes. I'll write more as soon as I can find somewhere private, I promise.' _

Appreciated. I'll see you soon.

She closed the diary quickly, returning it to her shirt and shoving her quill and ink into her pocket before she jumped down again and walked swiftly down to the hall. The lethargy and hunger had to be a side-effect of doing powerful magic. She had nothing to worry about, Tom had said himself that he'd been there fifty years without someone to talk to. If he _did_ remember her first year, he would have mentioned it, he would have slipped up and she would know.

She would know.


	3. Chapter 3

**Walking Higher**  
by Faith Accompli.

Disclaimer: Usual suspects belong to their creator, the younger Zabini is mine.  
Other Stuff: I know it's taken forever. Reality wasn't very kind for a long time, and then it was _very_ kind. Thank you, to those of you who keep reading... and thank you, Fj. For everything.

* * *

Time passed quickly for Ginny, her classes and her time spent socialising with other Gryffindors blurring unpleasantly in her mind, minutes into hours into days. Time only seemed to flow right when she was writing to Tom or when she slept, even the time she spent with the few that she would consider friends... it just wasn't quite right. 

Her schoolwork hadn't suffered for her lack of focus, for she seemed to do even better in class when floating along in her haze, and she completed what homework she didn't get done in class by wandlight at night while she wrote to Tom, asking him the answers when she became tired or bored. 

Invariably falling asleep after half an hour or so of writing to Tom each night, she had ceased worrying about the diary being found after the second night as she'd been the first, waking from dreams she couldn't remember to find herself curled up under the covers with the diary hugged to her chest. With the blankets over her and her bed-curtains drawn, the odds of anyone finding the diary were slim going on none--even if the girls she shared the dorm with were inclined to be friendly with her on waking, she'd be able to conceal the diary inside her pyjamas before they noticed. About the only thing that would motivate them to wake her would be when they needed her help in her prefect capacities, and the last thing they'd notice was a small book. 

She got on far better with the Gryffindor boys in her year than the girls, a side-effect of six brothers, and when not in class the girls thought she was off with Colin and William, and the boys assumed she was taking care of girly stuff that didn't require their presence. 

Having eluded Ron and Hermione by bolting a quick lunch before they arrived in from Herbology and slipping off outside into the chill November air, she was left free of questioning about her destination as she walked the two minutes it took her to reach a sunlit niche in the thick castle walls, obscured from general view by blue climbing roses and equipped with stone benches. 

She chose the one facing the entrance to the recess, tucking her feet up as she sat in the corner against the wall and pulled out the Everlasting Ink quill she'd received as an early birthday present from Fred's girlfriend Angelina a few days earlier, sniffing at the curious scent of roses and something sweet and burning that lingered in the air. She'd smelled that before, but where? Never mind. 

What to start with...the tried and true, she supposed. 

_Hi Tom. _

Ginny! How are you?

_Warm, not all that comfortable as I'm outside on a bench after lunch having escaped the madhouse to talk with you for half an hour, and moderately happy. You? _

Still a diary. There was a pause before Tom continued. How's your schoolwork coming along, then?

He was grasping for conversation matter. That was... kind of cute. 

_Brilliantly, as it happens. My marks for Potions, Transfig, Defence, Charms and Arithmancy went through the roof about five days ago, and they've stayed there since. Professor McGonagall is thrilled, saying I should get as many OWLs as Hermione did. _

You don't find it at all unethical for me to help you with your homework?

_As if._ Ginny laughed aloud at his question, writing after half a minute, _We're supposed to consult books for further information. I'm just consulting a book with a brain. _

Tom replied that that was most Machiavellian of her, and she was just about to ask what that was supposed to mean when arguing voices approached. _Interrupted,_ she scrawled and flicked over twenty or thirty pages to watch neat black print appear instead of Tom's elegant handwriting, the replacement words almost enough to make her blush if she hadn't been well past her second year of Hogwarts. 

Pushing the quill up her sleeve, she rearranged and seemed engrossed in the book with a lurid cover-illustration of a bare-chested handsome-but-dense-looking wizard running his hands over the bare breasts of a naked waiflike witch held back by thorny vines wrapped about her wrists and ankles. The witch was scowling furiously, her years held in that position probably not doing a lot to increase her pleasure about the situation. 

Ginny had spellotaped a cover over the diary a few days before, the stripped cover taken from the book Hermione's roommate Parvati had handed her when she asked for one to keep, displaying little curiosity about exactly why Ginny would want such an item but freely giving over the bodice-ripper. Now if Ron saw her with it, his interest in her activities would drop to nonexistent, which was all to the good. 

"Oh, come _on_. You're my sister, Em, you _have_ to give me one! Dominique's sending more tomorrow, and I'll give you one and a quarter for every one I steal now." 

"One and three." 

"And half." 

"I _guess..." _

The first voice wasn't recognisable in and of itself, but from the context, accent and the fact that she heard Emeryth's reluctant voice finally agreeing to share something, chances were it was her friend and Blaise, the girl's older sister who was attached to Terry Boot at the tongue. 

"Mind if I bludge one too, Emmy?" 

Speaking of whom... 

The three intruders rounded the corner, avoiding the roses that reached spiky tendrils for them with an ease that spoke of their long-frequenting the place, and Emeryth dropped the box she carried in surprise at seeing someone already there, the flash of red hair brighter than her own the first thing that came to her attention. 

"Holy shit," she proclaimed, her sentiment at least partially matched by the expressions of confusion on Blaise and Terry's faces. "Weasley, what're you doing here?" 

"Avoiding the herd, Zabini." Ginny stuffed the covered book into her pocket, looking at the shorter girl curiously. "You? You didn't come to get me 'cos there's a prefect's meeting now, right?" 

"Post-lunch cig." Emeryth nodded for Blaise and Terry to continue moving while she took a seat at the other end of Ginny's bench, box back in hand as she pulled three cigarettes from within. "Whereas it looks as if _you_ were out of the castle to read cheap pornographic material." Tossing two of them to her sister who promptly gave one to Terry, she looked contemplative for a moment and tapped another free. She lifted both to her lips and flicked her wand for a tiny flame to emerge at the tip, lighting them both in the same breath. Exhaling with a sigh, she offered one to Ginny. "Here." 

Ginny blinked in astonishment at the strange new gift, holding out her hand to take it between her fingers as Emeryth did, bringing it to her mouth and breathing in deeply. It had smelled good--warm, kind of sweet, and now she recognised it as the scent that traces of stuck to Emeryth's robes occasionally when she came in from lunch to Potions. It didn't _smell_ bad, but the harsh reality of the smoke entering her lungs caused her to cough, splutter and choke, bending over forward as she wheezed. 

Over the sounds of her laboured breathing she could hear Blaise chiding her sister, telling her she should warn Gryffindors before corrupting them. Emeryth responded with a rude snort and told the older Zabini to bugger off, Weasley wasn't that innocent, she just had a bad case of virgin lungs which was being fixed right then. 

Ginny was still coughing and blinking away tears when Emeryth looked at her with concern and reached to take back the cigarette. She waved the girl away with her free hand, pulling the cigarette to her protectively and straightening with effort. "I'll be fine," she rasped under threat from another coughing fit. "Get some gauze. Fetch a medic." 

Emeryth smirked at her sister smugly. "See? She's fine." 

"And now you've someone else who'll be after your precious stash," Blaise pointed out calmly with an exhalation of smoke. 

"Horrors." Emeryth really didn't seem to care about the negative aspects of that possibility, a fact that Ginny noted down distractedly as she wiped tears from her eyes. 

She tried again with a little less enthusiasm and a lot more success, this time finding pleasure in the smoke that curled into her lungs, bringing with it a sensation of giddiness. "D'you lot sneak off all the time to do this?" 

Terry nodded from where he sat with an arm around Blaise, the older redhead snuggled into his side with a possessive hand on his knee. She spoke for them all, saying "Almost all. Gotta do it outdoors, though, unless you're in the dungeons." 

"What's it worth on the punishment scale?" Ginny questioned, a little curious as she took another puff. 

"Depends on who catches you. Dumbledore, Filch, Flitwick, McGonagall, Pomfrey and maybe Sprout are good for a week's detention. Black and Lupin don't care either way and pretend not to see you. Snape doesn't give you detention if you're in Slytherin or with one of us. Vector and Sinistra tell you off for getting caught and then proceed to bum a smoke while they're at it, they call it the Stupid Tax." 

"Are we the stupid ones or they?" 

"Opinion varies," Terry said, taking one last drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out on the ground and flicking it under the bench he and Blaise sat on. 

"Stupidity all around, I reckon," Emeryth muttered, scuffing the pale paving-stones with black streaks from her shoes as she swung her legs in a gesture of boredom. "Shit. Potions next." 

"Not in the mood?" Ginny glanced sideways at the girl as she followed Terry's example; stubbing out her cigarette on a crack in the stones, tossing it into the damp leaves under the bench where it had less chance of being seen. 

"Still have a headache from Defence Against the Dark Arts." Emeryth looked thoughtful, extinguishing her cigarette at the same time Blaise did, the older prefects rising and waving an informal goodbye to the fifth-years. "Ginny, you don't have your cauldron with you. It's a bloody long way up and back...we can use all of my stuff for the impervious-mind potion, if you'll do most of the work so I don't have to lean over the cauldron and inhale hallucinogenic fumes." 

"Sure," she agreed without reserve, finding it an acceptable trade for the time she could use to write to Tom as soon as Emeryth disappeared to get her cauldron and potions supplies. 

...there was only one problem. Emeryth wasn't moving anywhere fast, having slouched back against the wall with her arms behind her head and her eyes closed. Had Emeryth come out here deliberately after her, or was it pure coincidence? Em had _seemed_ shocked to find her outside, but... 

"Shouldn't...you get your stuff?" 

"There's twenty minutes left. Continue reading your porn," Emeryth replied without looking over. Ginny's silence for a full minute made the Slytherin glance at her, suspicion rising in her eyes. "It's not porn, is it? What the hell could you have in the book that makes covering it with_ Beneath The Thorns Lies The Rosebud _seem like a _good idea?_" 

"Mhhdry..." Ginny mumbled, clarifying when Emeryth glared at her reticence. "My diary." 

"...gotcha. I'll not ask another word." Emeryth settled back down to enjoy the weak rays of sunlight that made it through the gaps in the vines above them. 

"And you won't tell anyone?" 

"My Slytherins wouldn't care and I wouldn't talk to your Gryffindors for love or money. Secret's safe." Emeryth's anti-Gryffindor prejudice was almost as strong as the rest of her house's, having taken exception only to Ginny after hearing the whispers circulated at the end of their first year, as far as she knew. Ginny being possessed by a young Lord Voldemort had earned her a measure of respect, or at least indifference, from the Slytherins, and they didn't go out of their way to persecute her as they did the rest of her year. 

There was also the possibility that they didn't want to learn intimately if Riddle had taught her any interesting and lethal tricks, although that was an uncharitable thought if ever Ginny had had one... and Ginny had many uncharitable thoughts. 

"Swear on your house's maligned and dubious honour?" 

"Fuck." 

"Thank you." 

She finished her chat with Tom in the presence of Emeryth, the Slytherin paying absolutely no attention to what Ginny wrote, which was probably for the best since Ginny gave a retelling of the Two Zabinis And A Boot scene that had just occurred, delighting in Tom's amusement at her own expense. Intellectually, she was aware that her happiness for Tom was a little off, but when she could almost feel his mood change from indifferent to a nigh-tangible ripe humour, it was hard to tell herself that and really care. 

They had left when they had just over ten minutes until Potions, Ginny waiting for Emeryth at the top of the stairs to the Slytherin common room so she was in no danger of hearing their password while Potions supplies and cauldron were collected, and arrived at the Potions dungeon with two minutes to spare before Professor Snape would stride in and sneer at the Gryffindors signalling the start of class.

.

Their potion had been almost perfect, only the wrong shade by half a tint and by far the best of the class. Professor Snape had praised Emeryth and nodded to Ginny, not bringing himself to make an actual comment on how well the Gryffindor had worked, and released them to their next class without scathing comments to the pair, although Colin and Samantha hadn't been nearly as lucky--their potion had exploded spectacularly after Colin added half his supply of Kneazle-whiskers instead of the required two. 

Ginny's class after Potions was History of Magic, a class she'd taken a liking to over the last few days when it gave her a chance to write to Tom for almost a full hour, glancing up at Professor Binns every few minutes to make it seem like she was copying his notes from the board or writing down the content of his lecture. 

The spectral teacher had taken a shine to her in light of the newfound attention he thought she was paying to his class, informing her that if she kept this up she would be receiving the highest in-class mark for participation he had issued in forty-six years. That was yet another thing for her to tell Tom in the general mockery they made of Professor Binn's classes, Ginny biting her tongue to keep from laughing out loud as Tom drew rude little stick-figure sketches of Binns and his goblins or as she copied down a far more humorous rendition of his lecture with random swear-words inserted into people's names and actions. 

She knew now that something wasn't right with her, she usually wouldn't have such blatant disregard for authority-figures where they could catch her at it, and she had thought she was past the point of obsessions by now. After the disaster that had been herself and Harry the year before, not to mention her first encounter with Mr Riddle, she should be able to resist _anyone's_ charm or appeal. 

But she was using every unsupervised moment she could to write to Tom, most likely neglecting her health horribly and if she didn't stay healthy she'd probably have Ron back on her case wanting to know what the hell she was doing. She just didn't have enough _time_. What she would have given for a time-turner, now... 

She was a Chaser, prefect, student. She had Quidditch practice every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, the prefect meeting every Thursday night, an absurd amount of homework _and_ little first-years to shepherd around every few days when a gaggle of them would get lost. By then she was used to simply following the sound of Peeves, and there she would find her first-years, usually soaking wet, covered in slime, bruised, stuck to the ceiling with excessive quantities of chewing gum or occasionally on fire. On occasion she would find other prefects' first-years and have to walk them at least part way to their common-room entrance unless she found their ghost or a student of their house old enough to escort them, and she was starting to feel just a little screwed over by the prefectship deal. 

Oh, sure, the teachers said they would give you power, they said you would have respect and privilege. They forgot to mention that they would also take away any time you didn't have allotted for class, homework, food and sleep, and even then the last three were negotiable. 

Now she had to sneak time, bringing her diary to the prefect meeting that night inside a larger notebook and pretending to take notes while actually deriding Cho, Harry and Mandy Brocklehurst. The former pair were being mocked for their idiocy in general, the latter for her attempts at luring Terry Boot over to her side when Blaise entered the Charms classroom a few minutes late, walking right through the seductive gaze Mandy was trying to employ and sprawling over Terry with a quick kiss for the boy. 

Chang objected loudly to the displays of affection and Emeryth, who sat beside Ginny in the corner as a layer of protection to stop people from just peering over to look at the diary, muttered quietly about the prefect bathrooms being perhaps better for an assignation than Flitwick's classroom, but since her sister wasn't getting naked it really wasn't an issue. Her comment, the source material provided by Ginny's bitching in Potions almost a month before, hit its mark dead-on. 

The head girl leapt at her for that, hissing something about having had it with mouthy fifth-year girls, and only the swift intervention of the head boy saved Emeryth from being slapped, Casca Warrington with his reflexes honed by years as Chaser for Slytherin house catching the small Asian girl and tossing her back into her seat. 

"Zabini's one of mine, Chang. If anyone disciplines her, it's me." Warrington glowered at Emeryth, the expression menacing to any not in Slytherin. "Wait for me after we're done here." 

Draco snickered softly, shaking his head at the younger Zabini with his eyes cast sideways to watch the cranky head girl be handed tissues by a solicitous Harry who hadn't reacted fast enough for his girlfriend's pleasure, seeker abilities notwithstanding. "Shame. Naughty-naughty." 

"Blow me, Malfoy," she invited cheerfully, tilting her head as if in deep thought. "Reminds me. Orgy still on for tomorrow night?" 

"Always." The blond boy smirked at the expressions the Hufflepuffs and all the Ravenclaws except Boot wore before they composed themselves. 

Ginny faithfully transcribed the scene into the diary complete with stick-figure representations of flying Cho and intercepting Casca, her eyes widening in surprise when she finished and Tom wrote back, Ahh. The Friday-night orgies...now those were some fun. 

_You really did? She's not kidding? Slytherin has them? _

Just kidding...mostly.

_Liar. I can't trust a word you say, can I? _

You can trust everything I say.

Flicking back a stray lock of hair that had fallen over her face with the end of her quill, Ginny refrained from answering with an 'Everything you say, maybe. Everything you write, not a chance in hell.' It would cause too many questions for a start, and then she'd be stuck writing long after the meeting was over. _Right. Meeting's over in a few minutes and I should pay attention to the summary. I'll speak with you again in half an hour once I get back to my dorm and go to bed, okay? _

Anything my lady Ginny desires. Tom answered without hesitation, a sly feeling emanating from the book in her hands as further words wrote themselves onto the page. Until we meet again...in your bed.

_Pervert._ She shut the notebook over him gently before he could reply and devoted her mind to listening to Warrington's finishing comments. He was going to ask the Bloody Baron to put the fear of himself into Peeves and hopefully lower the instances of first-year students being soaked, torched and arranged in rude positions on the walls and ceiling, and he ordered Hannah Abbott, Ernie McMillan, Aster Summers and Lennox Reed to keep an eye on Madley and Whitby for _fuck's_ sake, they were almost as bad as the Weasley Twits had been, and the majority of their tricks were aimed at the Slytherins. The older Hufflepuffs had, for the most part, made peace with the Slytherins - the younger ones were still being unduly influenced by the Gryffindors of their age group. 

He also thought it would be ...nice... if certain parties could remember that there was a reason there was a _girls'_ prefect bathroom and a _boys'_ prefect bathroom, in blatant hypocrisy because he knew quite well he'd made use of the boys' bathroom to get some privacy with Tracey Davis, and the Zabinis were aware of it too--Blaise was in the same year as Tracey, and while there were many secrets in house Slytherin, who slept with who was not commonly one of them. 

Last of all, the prefects' common room was almost back in commission after the disaster that had been the end of year party in June, resulting in fire damage and flooding from drunk and drugged prefects believing themselves to be beset by bandits when in actuality it was no more than shadows on the wall. They might care to think about holding their party at the end of _this_ school year somewhere that wasn't the prefects common room if only for the sake of the younger prefects that would have to soldier valiantly on after he and his year left, he would leave that to their discretion and organise it in the Astronomy tower regardless of what they said anyway. 

Cho started to ask why he thought he would be in charge, but he continued speaking, moving to end the meeting. 

"Seconded," Draco said loudly, grabbing a few éclairs from the table the house elves stocked for them every week and dropping them into a napkin to take back for Pansy, who had been bitching recently about how he never gave her anything, before he started to leave. 

A chorus of "Aye!"'s resounded from everyone but Cho, Harry, Terry and Blaise, the first too incensed to speak, the second not wanting to rouse his increasingly-touchy girlfriend's ire, and the last two raising their hands in lieu of speaking as their mouths were otherwise occupied. 

"Dismissed," Warrington said, snatching a sandwich from the table before he grabbed Emeryth by the wrist and yanked her out of the room, just slow enough for her to grab an éclair of her own and scamper to keep up. 

"Ooh, Casca, _discipline_ me, do!" Emeryth's wicked laugh floated back to them, and Ginny met Cho's eyes just long enough to sneer at her. 

With that they all started to file out, Hermione, Colin and Ginny leaving in time to see the edge of Draco's robes swirl out as he rounded the corner and started down the stairs. Ginny toyed with the idea of running ahead and stomping on them, but then that was hardly the way to repay someone who had done you a great favour. Instead she just snickered at Warrington and Emeryth ahead of them, the head boy's arm around the prefect's shoulders as he waxed eloquent about her simply _shocking_ behaviour and told her she'd have to do it again soon. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Walking Higher**  
by Faith Accompli

  
Notes and stuff: It's back! From outer space! Kill me now. Anyway, chapter four is back. Chapter five will be up by next weekend, as five and six are in need of a bit of html and then they're postable.

* * *

Ginny wrote to him after what Tom estimated to be thirty minutes, give or take a few seconds. His sense of timing wasn't what it had been when he was alive, but he wasn't going to comment on Ginny's lack of speed to the girl. The last thing she required was his criticism, or anything so jarring that it would make her draw away from him to re-evaluate her situation. He still needed her, and he would need her for some time to come. 

Her desire to be with him, spend her precious time writing to him, even sleep with him every night, it was--she was even more helpful than he would have believed she could be from the moment her ink had seeped through his pages. 

If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn she was deliberately feeding him her energy, breathing new life into him. But she wouldn't intentionally be so foolish after her encounter with him in her first year at Hogwarts, she was somewhat on her guard against him still. She had changed while he had been dead, she had become sarcastic and had a sweetly bitter streak running through her psyche that he knew had not existed before she met him. She had become devious. 

She was keeping the events of her first year from him, unaware that he already knew, yet she had displayed none of the bias he expected when it came to telling him of her life. She had made a friend of a Slytherin, a good friend if her tales were true, she had lost the intensely irritating Harry-love she carried throughout her first year, and she was open to him. 

He knew every thought, every feeling that flashed through her head when she touched him, he could influence her so subtly that she believed it was her own errant wisps of inspiration that made her behave as she did. He aided her with her homework, it was his mind and his experience that she drew upon in class to perform flawlessly, and all the little ties she allowed him let him sink deeper and deeper in, sending down roots into her mind... leaving him free to enter her dreams while she slept. 

_Tom! Sorry about the delay, Hermione was trying to talk to me about prefect business and it took me a bit to shake her free and plead off with a headache. _

Not tonight, dear, I have a headache? he asked wryly, stretching what empathic sense he had from the diary to judge her mood, to try and see if she was ready. He had thought she was, earlier that day, he shouldn't back away now... this was what he wanted, her helpless and willing at his hands. He wanted her to be willing to do anything for him, lie for him, bleed for him, die for him. 

_I say thee again, pervert._ He could sense her humour apparent first and foremost, followed by her magnanimous thoughts for him. She was almost there, he could chance it tonight. 

He had nothing to lose, if it went badly he could strip her of her life in a spell he had known of for some years before his incarceration in the diary. He didn't really want to do that, though. So wasteful, and he had a better plan now. Only if she forced his hand would he kill her. 

The girl could be some use, now, beyond a means to an end. I'm a teenage boy, Ginny, you can't expect me to play the martyr when I could make such priceless comments.

_Suppose not. Be true to thyself, right?_

She had it in one, there. Very true. So what are we working on tonight? Arithmancy? Potions? Anything but deathly-dull Transfiguration? __

Tonight we work on nothing. Homework can shove off for a night, we've nothing due until Tuesday anyway, and even with the Hufflepuff game tomorrow we'll have an overabundance of time to finish it later. Now it's just you and me. 

Is it a special occasion? he teased, amused by her vehemence. _Hardly. But it's my birthday in nine days, what do you want to do for it? _

Are you asking me for suggestions or are you asking me what I want to do? He was torn, but ideally he would love to have shape and form again, permanently, and perhaps give her a birthday gift she would never forget. The best way to do that would be to pull, pull the energy and life from her, all of it, right then. Ginny would have her curtains closed, she wouldn't be able to scream or flail, all she would be able to do was...die. But that would be impolite, and there was something to her now, a quality she hadn't had before when he tasted her. So instead of stealing her very life, he would just take a little. A very little... 

As much of a shock as it came to him, he was starting to realise that...he cared. Barely, but he cared about her. That was what truly stayed his hand. 

_Both. Either. But...Tom, I'm sorry, I'm tired. It just hit me like a ton of bricks, I don't know how much longer I can stay awake. Would you be terribly offended if I was to go to sleep now? We can talk more when I regain consciousness. _

He felt closer to alive than he had for a long time. He ought to have done this before, he should have remembered how sweet she was, the way her essence made him tingle in a way that had been completely inappropriate when the little redhead was eleven. Somehow I'll survive the night. Sleep, awaken refreshed, and get a whole new case of writer's cramp from the amount of thought you pour into me. 

_I think I'll do just that. _

He felt the diary close over him slowly, waited as her thoughts died down to nothing comprehensible from the outside, as he felt her relax completely. 

She was fast asleep, but the annoying girl-children that shared her dormitory couldn't be safely asleep yet, and until they would be, he could not take the risk they would interrupt. 

The minutes dragged by, slowly ticking over until he knew it was fifty-eight minutes past twelve. Seeping out of the diary faster and faster, he was as corporeal as he could be by the time the next minute passed. This was the only solid marker of time he had, the moment when the clock would slip from 12:59 to one o'clock. Any wizard more spirit than flesh would know it, any in tune with the ether around them, it was the moment when he could perform one particular old spell by right of magical birth without a wand or any other instrument of power. 

Placing a hand to Ginny's bare thigh, the part of the girl most accessible at that moment given that he'd materialised half-under the covers that fell aside to reveal the sleeping redhead in her shirt and plaid pyjama bottoms, Tom whispered, "Incedo veneficus hora." 

The witching hour. 

The moment when time would _stop_ for an hour, everyone but them frozen between two seconds. Clocks stopped for them, all around the deathly silence of peace, an ethereal glow from everything magical providing enough light to see although colours all blurred into shades of grey. 

.

His was a spell that couldn't be detected by even the most powerful witch or wizard, they all stopped, all but the one who performed the spell and any he was touching. When it ended it was gone, vanished without a trace. It was most suitable for his purposes now, although it would have been so much more use if he could interact with the frozen as they lay or stood, however they had been captured at the second the witching hour happened--he could have killed, stolen, touched... but he was content with this. 

Tracing a hand over Ginny's forehead after he had collected an object from the bedside table, he spoke louder now there was no chance of others interrupting, "Expergefacio et exaudio." She blinked awake hazily, more suggestible to him than she would have been from waking of her own free will, ready to do almost anything he wanted. She wouldn't kill for him, she wouldn't die for him yet, but she would hear and obey if he didn't push it beyond reason. 

Ginny propped herself up on one elbow and said in a bewildered voice, "Tom? What's happening?" 

"A dream, my princess." 

"I don't want to be a princess anymore," she murmured softly, reaching up to bat his hand away hesitantly. "I want to be queen." 

There was a subtle difference she outlined with her words, something that made him blink in surprise. "And why is that?" When she was eleven, she had told him about her childhood desire to be a princess, something that seemed just a little foolish to her by that age. He had called her his princess, and she had liked it. 

She sat up fully now, one leg over his as it had moved naturally there and she didn't seem to find a reason to take it back. "Princesses ride off into the sunset with the charming prince and live happily ever after, but there isn't. There isn't a happily ever after, there's only the now and the then. Queens can control the now." 

His Ginny had become quite the philosopher in his time away from her. "You've become wise." Raising her hand, entwining his fingers with hers, he kissed her fingertips slowly. She was no longer an innocent child, and he had no qualms about wooing allies by whatever means necessary. 

"I don't feel like it," she admitted candidly, gazing in his direction with unfocused eyes and drawing her hand back after half a minute's heavy thought. "How can you be here?" 

"I'm not real." Tom brushed a hand through her hair gently, exhilarated when she rubbed against him like a kitten seeking attention. She was looking to be easier than he had hoped after all... "It's all in your mind, sweet. You're trying to tell yourself something, is my best guess." 

"If this is all in my mind, I think you should tell me," Ginny said, head tilting to the side as she slowly tried to make sense of the situation. 

She wasn't as easy to manipulate as she used to be. Not quite. "You should just do as you think best." He placed the object from the table into her right hand, taking her left in his again and tracing a line down the centre of her palm. Her eyes rolled back and she smiled, no longer watching him, thoughts floating away to some place he couldn't follow without losing form. 

"Best...?" the girl mumbled, anything she would have followed that word with lost in a blissful hum as he continued stroking her hand. 

"Aren't you forgetting something?" he asked after a minute, replacing her hand gently in her lap. 

"Mmm..." Ginny seemed to regain some of her lost mind, looking at him calmly and then gazing down at her hand. Seconds ticked by as she studied her hand, gnawing on her lip softly as she thought. Then with one swift moment she brought up the knife that he had given her, the little penknife she had inherited from Charlie to sharpen her quills with, and scored from between her thumb and index finger a deep gash, all the way down to her wrist. 

Blood welled up and the pain from the slice made her gasp, biting her lip hard. 

The diary they shared lay between them, open to the middle so it lay flat. She looked up at him with tear-glittering eyes and slammed her hand down on the crisp white pages, holding it there with her other hand to stop herself from pulling away after she had discarded the clean knife somewhere into the blankets. "Is this what you...what I wanted?" 

"Your lifeline..." Tom said slowly, recognising the symbolism in her act. "Ginny..." 

"My life and yours," she whispered, not fighting him when he lifted her hand. The blood had soaked into the diary already, leaving the pages clean as they ever were. Leaving him feeling more alive than he had since...he had been alive. It was a heady sensation, and he no longer had the feeling that if he touched her, he would go right through her skin. He had _power.._. 

He had her power. "Do you know what you're doing?" Questioning, not pushing. Holding her wrist up and watching the trickle of blood that flowed down. 

"No." Ginny's reply was hesitant, uncertain. Her eyes were almost scared now. Vulnerable. 

"Medicor." He didn't need a wand for this third spell either, not when he was wrapped in her magic, when he was using the spell on her. Instead he licked the blood from the rapidly-healing wound, a mental smirk forming in his brain when she blushed, another surge of power rushing through him at the taste of her blood. Letting her hand fall, he looped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. A second time, in the softest murmur before he kissed her mouth, kissed away the blood from her pierced lip, "Medicor." 

She responded slowly, cautiously first, then with increasing alacrity as he leaned her over backwards, the pair of them landing gently and Ginny slipping a hand inside the back of his shirt to press him closer. 

"I'm bad," she confessed before dragging him down for another kiss. 

If he had known she felt this way, if it hadn't been the one thing she successfully hid from him, he would have tried to put in a corporeal appearance _far_ sooner. 

Outside the isle of time that had been Ginny's bed, a clock started ticking again. Tom started in shock, caught halfway between pulling Ginny's grey-white t-shirt up, and slowly drew it down again. "Sleep." It couldn't have been an hour already--but he couldn't have her wake up, be truly awake, and remember. She would sleep and perhaps have vague dream-memories, which he could deny knowing anything of if she were to ask him. But he would return. He was growing oh so very fond of her. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Walking Higher**  
by Faith Accompli

Oops, I'm lagging. Just a few days late, really. Thank you, those of you who reviewed--I 'ppreciate lots.  
Oh, also - for everyone wandering in and wondering, this story was started a very long time ago - in 2002 - before JKR said that Ginny's name was Ginevra. I am not changing the story to comply with canon, sorry, because... various reasons, really. (And please, Ginevra when her father's name is Arthur? Twist_ed._)

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Ginny awoke late that morning with barely enough time to dress and get down to breakfast before it would be over, let alone enough for a wake-up shower. It was probably for the best, she decided as she pulled on her skirt and then her school blouse over her shirt. She thought it would do until later, until she had time to dress properly at lunch or maybe it would just have to do for the day. Scrambling into her robes, tucking her diary into the waistband of her skirt without a thought, she got to her feet at last and instantly regretting the action as her head spun. Standing still for a moment settled it down enough that she could walk with only the edges of her vision blurring, and she hastened to collect her Transfiguration and Arithmancy books and throw them into her bag, shouldering it even as she started for the door. She would apologise to Tom for sleeping in later, he would understand. That, or he'd just have to cope. She was starving, and she wasn't going to miss this meal for anyone, no matter how she felt about them. 

Navigating the stairs verged somewhere between unpleasant and nauseating to her, and she had to stop and lean against the wall twice, but continued on downwards. Once she reached level ground the sick feeling in her stomach subsided, letting her speed up into a brisk walk as she left the common room and went down the less-irritating mostly-straight staircases towards the great hall, not without a few bitter thoughts for Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin for the insight of placing their houses' dormitories underground. Badgers and serpents, they could always go to earth. It made sense enough for the Ravenclaws to have their eyrie, but lions walked on the ground. What she would have given at that second _not_ to have seven flights of stairs to walk or possibly fall down... It would have been so much easier if she'd been sorted a Slytherin or a Hufflepuff...well, not a Hufflepuff. But a Slytherin wouldn't have been so bad right now... 

Those thoughts kept Ginny from remembering how tired she was long enough to get her to the hall, where she slipped onto the bench between Colin and his brother's girlfriend Natalie and grabbed a bowl, spooning porridge into it with unladylike haste and greed. She was reaching for the milk when the tidal wave of pain and exhaustion hit her, sending her consciousness spiralling down into the depths of her mind and leaving her body behind to fall. 

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Natalie MacDonald was starting her third piece of toast when Ginny Weasley arrived at their table, flopping casually down between her and Colin and attacking the food with vigour, piling half the serving-bowl of porridge into her plate and dropping two slices of toast on the side. The older girl was just moving to swipe the milk when her eyes rolled back in her head, an expression of absolute blankness taking over as she started to fall forward. Natalie reacted with more instinct than thought, sending her toast flying freely to hit Timothy Spinnet in the forehead as she tried to arrest Ginny's fall with one arm thrown in front of the older girl and a strong pull backwards. She hadn't taken into account Ginny's meagre weight or her own strength, increased by intensive practices at all ungodly hours the year before when the then-captain had decided to put the reserves through hell and hopefully have them come out the better for it as the team would _need_ them the next year after losing five of its members in one fell graduation, and both she and the older chaser tumbled backwards. Natalie landed hard under Ginny, winded as one tended to be when hitting the ground, and shocked whispers started all around them. She was pinned for less than a second before Colin was up and pulling Ginny off her, handing the redhead over to Ron and helping her to her feet gently. Ron was looking horrified and scooped his sister up for ease of carrying, sprinting through the doors to the entrance hall and halfway up the stairs before any of the teachers still at breakfast noticed the commotion. Natalie brushed off Colin's concern gently, and then the rest of the audience's with less care, pointing out acerbically that _she_ was not the one that had just passed out in her breakfast. 

They just might get screwed into the ground this game. Their captain didn't spend enough time captaining, it was usually Ron who called the practices when they had the whole team, and he and Harry were the only ones to have been on the team the year before. She wasn't completely sure, but how good could their chances be if Hufflepuff's team was solid from their last season, and _all_ their chasers and beaters were new to the team, and then the best one passes out at breakfast, minimizing her chance of making it to the game? "We're buggered." 

Natalie shook her head and patted Colin on the shoulder. "I'm fine. I'm going to see if there's a chance Ginny's still on for this afternoon. Warn Dennis he may have to play." God, she hoped that wasn't the case. Dennis was her best friend of two years and her boyfriend of five months, but he was no replacement for Ginny on a broomstick. Taking her leave before anyone could get close enough to ask her what had happened, was Ginny sick, pregnant or cursed, or anything else as inane, she pelted out and barely avoided a collision with an older Hufflepuff boy also on his way from the breakfast table. 

She reached the hospital wing in less than two minutes, passing a dejected Ron who had been kicked outside to wait, as she barged in with no heed to his warning of "She won't let you--" and drew to a stop at the sight of Ginny breathing shallowly on one of the beds, Madam Pomfrey beside the unconscious girl with her wand drawn and engaged in some sort of diagnostic spell. 

"Miss MacDonald, unless you feel that one of your limbs or your head is about to fall off, I suggest you wait with Mr Weasley until I can establish just what is wrong with Virginia here." 

"I stopped her from drowning in her breakfast and she fell on me in the process, I don't think my head is going to fall off but I feel dented..." A complete lie on her part, but she couldn't get kicked out, she had to be there when Ginny woke up so Madam Pomfrey couldn't knock her out and tie her down for a few days of 'bed rest'. "...so I'll sit here really quiet until you're finished and then you can look at me." As proof of her good intent she took a seat on another of the beds, her legs hanging over the edge and swinging silently until they were glared at by Pomfrey. 

"Very well." Madam Pomfrey dismissed Natalie from her mind for the moment and turned her full attention back to Ginny. With a frown as she checked the girl's heartbeat, she withdrew from under Ginny's shirt what looked to be an erotic novel, the cover of which made Natalie blush. Flicking through it quickly with her expression lightening considerably when she saw inside, the witch replaced it and continued with her checking of the unconscious girl's vital signs. 

"Fatigue. Anaemia. Dehydration--" Pomfrey read off a checklist in her mind, adding after a concerned look at Ginny, "--and overwork. Miss Weasley will be here overnight, I believe, and as for you, Miss MacDonald--" She crossed the room to a smaller cabinet on the wall and tapped it twice with her wand, the doors swinging open long enough for her to remove a bottle of noxious magenta liquid and a large spoon. "Two spoonfuls of this and you will be on your way to class unless you'd be so good as to pass out." 

Natalie was dosed with vile potion and Madam Pomfrey started to guide her to the door when she pulled away. "But--Madam Pomfrey--we have a Quidditch match this afternoon! Can you fix Ginny by then? Pepper-Up potion or something?" 

"Out! I sincerely doubt Virginia will be playing today, and you should make fit to inform your classmates of this fact!" 

Natalie protested the whole way as she was propelled out the door and it closed quietly behind her. Ron looked up in questioning, and she just shrugged. "Tired, overworked, something about 'anaemia' whatever that is. And thirsty. We're gonna have to use Dennis today." 

"We're fucked, then. And Mum's gonna kill me." 

.

Tom was partially aware now of what went on outside the diary he was trapped in, or to be precise--and he did like precision--he was aware of what went on in Ginny's mind, almost everything she saw, heard and thought. So when her thoughts just cut off all of a sudden while she was thinking uncharitably about the founder of her house and wishing--actually wishing--that she'd been sorted into Slytherin, even if it were for the sole purpose of having a shorter walk to breakfast... 

Well, he was understandably concerned. Ginny had risen to the occasion admirably the night before, spilling her blood willingly for him, and when he had healed the cut one thing had led to another at his prompting before the witching hour had ended. He was more awake now, more alive, and he knew he owed her a debt for it. She had given in a manner that indicated her trust, indicated that she wasn't going to throw in the towel or run to a teacher over whatever he was doing. 

Ginny had split her lifeline with him, and that was a bond. She had given him power while she slept, a double-bond that she was probably unaware of given the preoccupation of her waking thoughts. 

That made him in part responsible for her, just as much as she was responsible for him. And Ginny had a Quidditch game starting at one that afternoon that she wouldn't want to miss. 

He hadn't cared much for Quidditch in his days, the lack of a decent broomstick being only part of the fault--he'd had so much else to learn that there wasn't time for gadding about in the air--but Ginny cared. Much as it disturbed him to admit it, there was sufficient link between them that if she cared, so cared he. 

One. That left him...something like three hours before she would need to be awake and out there or she would miss out. 

He could only guess at the time, and would doubtless end up trying to wake her much sooner than she needed, but the alternative was to let her sleep on--his train of thought was derailed by an uncomfortable feeling, and he realised with shock someone else was handling him--someone not Ginny. 

A blank diary would be instantly suspicious to any that knew of her first year. 

Mentally flipping through the pages of his diary, his self, until he reached two weeks before, he started to scrawl notes about schoolwork, rephrased snippets of what he recalled from her sarcastic post-commentary on Quidditch practices, fleetingly interspersed with comments of slight sleepiness and the intent to sleep "after '...' homework was finished". All in Ginny's hand, occasionally in varying colours. Mostly black, occasionally blue and once in a dark purple. 

No sooner than he had done that, the entire process taking no more than a second, those pages were turned to deliberately. Whoever was reading them..._ feeling of concern, an older witch, acceptance of the diary as normal..._ was quickly satisfied at least in regards to him, although she worried over Ginny. 

Nothing was wrong with Ginny. She was a strong girl, he had recognised that much when she was years younger. She would wake up none the worse for wear, and come back to him. 

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A voice was inside her head, trying to rouse her from the lovely pool of darkness in which she was submerged, hanging over a shimmer of silver-gold that roiled like coloured lightning. It was pretty...one hand reached for it, but the voice reprimanded her. It was a nice voice, rich and ever so slightly posh-sounding, like the speaker took enough care to watch that he didn't slur words.

_'Ginny, you've gone too far! Come back, now! That way leads to madness.' _

'But it's nice...' she thought back reproachfully. 

_'So is fire, until it burns your hand off.'_

'So?' 

_'Look--Ginny, you've got a Quidditch match in just under half an hour, and I suggest you wake up for it unless you want to disappoint your teammates horribly.'_

'Don't care...what's Quidditch?' 

_'You cared before--what do you mean, what's Qui...Ginny._' The voice calmed itself with obvious effort. So she was Ginny, then? _'Ginny, come towards me now. Up. Reach up. I'm waiting._' 

'It's effort,' she sent at the voice after a moment or so of swimming up. She wasn't quite sure how she could breathe in the--stuff she was in, but if the voice could do it, she could too. 

_'It's not far once you start. Spiral when you break the surface, come to me. I can't follow you there. '_

She believed the voice, so she continued swimming upwards with only one lingering glance back at the light. Breaking the surface what seemed like an eternity later, images and memories came to her. The first and foremost was one of a dark-haired boy, older than her, sparkling dark blue eyes that tempted her, teasing lips, and gentle hands that could be deadly. She liked that danger. Further pieces came to her as she whirled around and around, upward, those pieces snapping into place in her consciousness. People with red hair like her own, such a lot of them, a brunette girl, a boy with green eyes that seemed nice but had a shadow about him. Older men and women in robes, wizards and witches. Monsters that looked at her but fled on really seeing her. Quidditch, the thing the voice--the boy--had mentioned, flying balls and broomsticks. Something very phallic about that. And then... 

_'You're here.'_ The voice caressed her mind with gentle tones, trailing over her, surprise and disbelief. 

'You told me to,' she answered simply, luxuriating in the ripple of pleasure that ran through her from him. 

_'You might want to wake up now. Your game starts in...thirteen minutes.'_

'Mighty fuck!' The thought popped unbidden into her mind, and she turned quickly, stifling the amusement she felt at his almost-believable shock. 

_'Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?'_

'No, but I might kiss _you_ if you don't help me wake up.' As threats went, it wasn't particularly intimidating. 'I don't know how--I can't--' 

The voice and presence winked out faster than a snuffed candle, and a second after that she heard the voice again, from without. _'Virginia Weasley, wake up **now!**'_

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Ginny sat bolt-upright, her eyes wide open and taking in her surroundings to inform her that she was tucked into bed in the hospital wing before she could form a cohesive thought. Madam Pomfrey hurried over and tried to make her lie down again, but she fended off the woman's hands quickly and leapt off the other side of the bed. Or tried to, anyway. The best she managed was falling to her knees, entangled in white sheet. Her robes had been taken away, but the weight and warmth of the diary remained pressed to her ribs. "Can't stay. Gotta go. Hufflepuff match, I have to--" 

"You have to get back in bed and rest," Madam Pomfrey stated, coming around the bed after her. "You're tired, anaemic, and you've been working too hard. Studying for O.W.L.s is all very well, but when it makes you drown in your breakfast--" 

She scrambled away backwards, legs twitching ineffectually in her attempt to get away. They just weren't listening, wouldn't do as she commanded. "I'm fine! I just slept! I...I..." 

"You can't even walk, stop being absurd," Pomfrey snapped. "If you could get up and walk out of here right now, I wouldn't stop you, but you're in _no_ state..." 

Ginny tuned out the rest of the older witch's rant, turning to the one person that might have been able to help her. She had no logical reason to try it, no logical reason to invite him in, but sometimes logic had to be damned because she had a game to play. '_Tom! Tom, I need your help!'_

The answer arrived instantly, almost before she had finished thinking. _'Name it.'_

_'I need out. Help me walk. Please. You have to._' The problem would be in her mind, in her coordination. If he was there--he wasn't tired like she was, he wasn't prone to making mistakes. He could get her out. 

_'Are you letting me into your mind?'_

_'Yes.'_ In desperate times you sought aid from anyone willing to give it, and she trusted Tom this much. 

A warmth suffused her body then, starting in her head and travelling down every nerve in a wave of sensation that made her bite her tongue to keep from crying out or moaning. Her voice spoke as she--as he got her to her feet gracefully, yanking the sheet away from her legs and tossing it to the woman inching closer. "Thank you for your assistance. I'll return if anything untoward happens today. Bye!" 

And before Madam Pomfrey could grab at her, she had vaulted over the next bed, landing on her feet in a run that lead her straight out the door. If Tom would only consent to fly with her as well, she might have a chance to play without getting knocked out in the first half-minute. 

_'Of course I'll fly with you._' The thought was firm, strong. Like Tom was. And underneath that, the faintest whisper almost passed unnoticed, _'I'll never leave...as long as you need me.'_

.

They won by a hundred and thirty points. 

She had arrived with not a moment to spare, tugging on the Quidditch robes that Dennis Creevey pulled off in relief when he saw her approach, taking her broom from him and running a hand along the shaft thoughtfully. She knew how to fly _well_, Tom drew off her experience, and somehow between the two of them they managed to be one decent chaser. She wasn't be as good as she could be, Tom's relative lack of familiarity with flying worked against them, but he could keep her steady, and his reflexes weren't as bad as they could have been for someone that had done almost nothing but sit in a book for the previous fifty-odd years. Hufflepuff had been good, their Chasers and Keeper almost brilliant, but Tom had some tricks up his own sleeves. 

There was a subtle difference to how they worked together, her chosen flight route was more serpentine, and she had been slightly aggressive with Wayne Hopkins, a sixth-year Chaser. Actually, she and Tom had kicked the boy off his broomstick 'accidentally' after he intercepted her throw at the goal-hoop and swooped around underneath to snatch the Quaffle from him as he had fallen. Susan Bones, keeper for Hufflepuff, had immediately gone after her fallen team-member and left the goal-hoop unattended, so she'd won Gryffindor an extra ten points. Hufflepuff had called a foul and been granted it, but Ron stopped them from actually scoring and all she'd received were glares from the Hufflepuff team and a frown from Harry. 

Harry had caught the Snitch two hours into the game, sending their score shooting up from seventy to two hundred and twenty, leaving Hufflepuff behind in the dust with their score of ninety, and as they'd flown off the pitch towards the changing room, Harry had indicated he wanted to talk to them--her. He wanted to talk to her, because he had no idea Tom was with her and it would be in their best interests not to let him know. With that in mind, Tom agreed to talk after a quick shower, and Harry nodded in satisfaction, heading for the boys' showers. As soon as the door closed behind him, they left stealthily, avoiding the revelling Gryffindors, angry Hufflepuffs, indifferent Ravenclaws and half-amused, half-uncaring Slytherins. Emeryth had cheered for her when they kicked Hopkins off his broomstick, and the Slytherins around her all fifth-year or lower shouted out encouragement as did many more bloodthirsty Gryffindors, but she didn't really want to run into any students because _that_ meant talking at best, and at worst they would drag her into the celebrations, leaving her unable to slip away for some hours. She was just too _tired_. 

Instead she had Tom walk her up to Gryffindor tower, vaguely aware at that point that she could have resumed control of her movements and done it herself, but content to let him do it. She couldn't feel the bruise developing on her arm, hadn't felt the initial slash of pain when the Bludger had nicked her in flight, and thought that avoiding that pain at least until she was lying down would be all for the best. 

She informed the Fat Lady that they had won, and entered the portrait-hole to find their common room almost empty, only a sick first-year tucked up and asleep in blankets by the fire with his head resting on a copy of _The Standard Book of Spells. _The boy didn't awaken as she went up the stairs of the girls' dormitory, intent on collapsing on her bed and losing consciousness again. It was early, only a few minutes past three, but sleep was looking very attractive to her. That fact made her a little annoyed when Tom guided her body into nonchalantly grabbing her dressing-gown from the end of her bed and continuing into the bathroom. 

'_What're you **doing**?_' she asked him, surprised when he started pulling her clothes off with just enough hesitance to show that he wasn't familiar with taking off a girl's clothes, at least while wearing them. 

'_You're going to shower._' Tom informed her blankly, starting the water and checking the temperature. '_Unless you want to wake up smelling less than sweet...one night is fine and well, but two?_' 

'_...point,_' she conceded reluctantly. '_Are you going to help me, then?_' 

'_I can go back to the diary now, if you think you can manage by yourself._' 

'_I'm sure I'm capable of showering without aid._' 

'_As the lady says..._' Tom's presence dissolved in her mind like a snowflake in hot water, and pain shot up her bruised arm, her legs buckling as she stepped into the shower and fell to her knees. 

_'Actually...a little help? Please?'_

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Ginny had been surprisingly willing to let him into her mind again so she could shower. Either she had no exact recollections of the times he'd possessed her when she was young, or she was past the point of caring. The pain her body felt from a mild injury sustained in the game might have had something to do with it, but if that was the only thing wrong then she could have gone to Madam Pomfrey and been dosed with a painkiller. He hadn't expected the old magic they'd worked, the blood and the life she gave him, to have that effect on her nerves--a numb pain that made her dizzy and have difficulty walking, but it was again working out for his best. He didn't mind taking that pain in her place, it was a lot easier for him when he remembered that he _had_ no body, therefore the pain wasn't really there, and it had made her grant him far higher access to her mind than he could have taken himself without brute force. Her pride could be a useful tool, her desire to show no vulnerability around her peers. In her effort to look in complete control, she had turned to him. Once her loyalty was given, it would stay. He was closer to her than her friends were... 

They had showered, not talking, and he had been careful not to pay too much attention to any detail of washing except her hair, which tangled dreadfully when he rinsed it until he had applied almost half a bottle of conditioner, to avoid giving her motivation to believe those half-joking thoughts about how much of a pervert he really was, the thoughts she for some reason didn't know he heard. 

After that he had gotten them out of the shower, wrapping her hair somewhat clumsily in a towel until he saw how it could stay, and pulling the dressing-gown around Ginny's body. Collecting the diary and hiding it in a pocket, dropping her dirty clothes into the basket for the house elves to collect, he walked them back to her bed, sat, pulled the curtains shut around them and flopped back into the pillows. 

_'You can sleep now,'_ he thought to her gently, pulling into the back of her mind with her and rousing her from the mental daze she'd subsided into during the trip from bathroom to bed. 

She swayed in the darkness apprehensively, clothed in it as she hadn't been when he had drawn her out of her subconscious, away from the path to...something he didn't want to know about. She wore it like a mantle, fire-red hair flowing down freely and contrasting beautifully with the black. _'It'll hurt.' _

_'I can stay until you sleep.' _He offered a hand to her, and she closed the distance between them. Covered his hand with her own, guided it to her back. Placed one hand on his shoulder, tucked her other hand in between his side and his arm, rested her head on his shoulder next to her hand. She moved just the slightest bit, getting more comfortable, and he put his free hand beside the other, holding her close. She sighed softly, relaxing completely...in trust. 

_'Thank you.'_

He had her now, and she would never turn back. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Walking Higher**  
by Faith Accompli

Again, those of you who know I promised to have this posted five days ago? Sorry. Work and sleep got in the way. Thank you for reading, everyone who does.  
Oh yeah. Warning: contains sex. 

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He stayed with her until the witching hour was almost upon them, untangling himself from her sleeping mind's embrace at the last moment and flinging free to repeat the incantation from the night before even as he was materialising in the real world, taking Ginny's hand when he spoke the last syllable. 

Again, time stopped. 

Ginny stirred under his touch then, lashes fluttering fitfully before her eyes opened. She was awake before he could draw her subconscious out with his spell, and smiling hesitantly. "You stayed." 

"I didn't want to disturb you," Tom started, then changed his tack. "Why did you wake?" 

"I followed you." Curling her fingers around until they interlaced with his, she sat up slowly. "I feel better now." 

"You do?" he prompted slowly, waiting for the other shoe to drop. For her to realise what was happening, for her to pull back. 

"It was dreadfully fuzzy before. Now the world just blurs at the edges, and it doesn't hurt." 

"That's a good thing." He wasn't sure what to do now, how to lead her when she had at least some grasp of her mental facilities. She just nodded in agreement, wondering aloud if they were in the diary, in his mind. He said softly that they might be, deciding that his best plan would be to lull her back to the half-doze she had been in the night before. 

"That's funny. It looks a hell of a lot like my bed. If this is what's on your mind, you need to get out more." 

He started to answer, getting as far as "I couldn't agr..." before she kissed him gently, shaking the words out of his mind with the simple contact. She reached back with her free hand as his tongue parted her lips, sinking forward to sit closer, raising their interlocked hands and pulling hers back. Working blindly, a flash of cold metal catching his eye, she didn't flinch when his hands covered hers again and lightened the pressure she cut with, holding her steady, helping her retrace the healed cut from the night before, shallow enough with his intervention to draw a bright beading of blood without it trickling down her fingers before she flipped the diary open on his lap and pressed her hand down palm-flat to the paper. His hand still over hers as her blood seeped into the diary, he could literally feel the life returning to him, every drop from Ginny strengthening him, building the power he needed to be cast into flesh again. At that moment, for her sacrifice, he loved her. 

The feeling flickered away to bury itself deep when he drew back and lifted her hand, careful not to take so much from her as she'd forced the night before, and licked at the wounded flesh. She shivered as he whispered the healing charm, the first rush of power he gained from her blood and magic giving him ample ability to perform something so simple without aid of a wand, leaning over the diary to kiss him again. Ginny was tasting the sweet tang of her own blood and liking it, curling into his lap when he pushed the diary aside, corporeal enough to stand the light weight of her. She didn't protest when he slipped a hand inside her bathrobe, warming himself with the feeling of her heart beating, as his would so very, very soon with just a little of her help. She was slipping from the Gryffindor ideal, spending time in the company of snakes more often, eschewing the lions of her house in their favour, and in his. 

It was like stealing candy from a baby. 

.

Ginny awoke early on her birthday morning, at least early for her, rubbing her eyes groggily to peer at the end of her bed in case any mail for her had been delivered while she slept and hissing in annoyance when there proved to be nothing there but her robes and a sock. Dismissing the matter quickly, figuring that anything she received would probably be delivered at breakfast in an hour, she found her bathrobe and headed for the shower, brushing her hair back with one swipe of her hand, remembering her dream from the night before after a second's thought. 

Tom had been there again, she had bled for him and he had kissed her better, they had danced, the tall boy leading her in a sweeping waltz around the room--dancing on air, their feet not touching the ground. She had worn a silky nightgown, the same one she wore now, soft whites and blues in a swirling pattern that ended just above her knees, one of the items that had been pressed upon her to her great embarrassment when Fred and Angelina had taken her out into Muggle London the previous summer. She had hidden it in the bottom of her trunk for the longest time, but the previous night had seemed the time to bring it out. Tom had approved in her dream, telling her she'd become quite the lady. She had been torn between the desire to smack him and question him if he really meant it, finally settling for looking away and grumbling that it was clean, at least. 

He hadn't laughed at her. Kissed her, and tucked her back into bed with a promise of "Tonight," although what that was supposed to mean she didn't know... but he hadn't laughed. 

He was entirely too nice to her in her dreams. He wasn't himself in her dreams, not the way she'd remembered him from her first year. The mumbo-jumbo three of her dorm-mates spouted whenever they weren't talking about boys said that all dreams were omens of things to come, but Hermione claimed dreams were just the mind's way of trying to make sense of the day's happenings, everyone that appeared in them only a part of one's personality or the personification of their desires. 

That, she decided as she started the water and stepped under the hot spray, was indicative either that she was a manipulative but charming bastard with a desire to kiss herself, or she wanted Tom. Quite badly. Neither option was much in the way of a settling thought. 

She washed quickly, not lingering in her efforts to get back to Tom and write a little before she ate, knowing that she had Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts and History of Magic before the school day was over, and she wouldn't be able to talk to him in either of the first two classes. The third and last she would be free to write in, since Binns' lectures hadn't changed one bit since Tom was at school, and if she told him the date he could recite verbatim everything the ghost had said. He had proven so five days ago, idly wondering if Binns had changed one damn word in the last fifty-five years. Even better, Tom could summarise an hour of sleep-inducing blather into ten sentences, and he'd written her last essay on the '_recent_' classifications of beast and being for her. Recent, in Binns' insubstantial brain, was 1811. So much for Hogwarts being the leading school in Europe--she'd be willing to bet a Galleon that at least_ other_ schools had history classes that hadn't been teaching the exact same material for the last hundred years. 

Hopping out and drying off quickly, she jumped back into bed and dug out her quill and diary from under the pillows, jerking the curtains closed and grabbing her wand with her toes, lighting it with the command of 'Lumos' before she opened the diary. 

Ink bled onto the page, tracing around a rose and filling it in with exquisite detail, dark red petals velvety and smooth green stem complete with thorns, words appearing underneath it in neat handwriting. Happy birthday, Ginny. 

She bit her lip, taking a deep breath as an ache pulsed in her chest for the barest moment, and wrote on the opposite page. _Thank you. Much appreciated. _Nothing to read into his greeting. Charming, he was, as ever he'd been. It was just a friendly gesture. 

Welcome. How long do you have before breakfast?

Back to business. _About half an hour._

Hadn't you better get dressed?

How did he know she wasn't? _Are you watching me?_

Ginny, I have no eyes, his answer was swift, and he continued, Your hands are damp. Unless you've got something to confess, you were probably just bathing. 

Damn his logic. _Yes. Fine, I'll get dressed, and you just see if I write to you for a bit_. 

You've got Charms and DADA after breakfast. Come History you'll be crawling back to me, wanting something--anything--to take your mind off Binns.

Damn him for having a brain. Especially one she couldn't see to poke with pins. _Smartarse. I'll talk to you in three hours, then_. 

I look forward to the opportunity to entertain your patrician mind with my plebeian attempts at stick-figure theatre. 

Snorting at his cheek, she scrawled a quick response of _Don't take the piss, Tom,_ shutting the diary firmly on him before he could make a witty comeback. Clothes, breakfast, classes. Quidditch match, Slytherin and Hufflepuff. She would be there, of course, to cheer Emeryth on. The girl had made it onto the team when Draco became captain that year, deciding that the higher speeds the lighter girls could achieve was an acceptable compromise to the size of the graduated Chasers. Emeryth had also told her that Millicent Bulstrode had cornered him one day before the tryouts and threatened to wallop him one good if he didn't let the girls try out. The blond boy had just laughed, telling her that the best players would get on the team. The ability to knock out opposing players was a bonus which Millicent had in abundance, winning herself the vacant Beater position much to no one's surprise, Crabbe and Goyle not being much for flying about. Emeryth had cheered for her brutality towards Hufflepuffs the week before, today it was her turn to egg the Slytherin on. 

Tying her shoelaces in knots in her rush as she realised she didn't have _that_ much time to get down before the morning mail, she tucked the diary quickly into her back pocket and fled the dorm for the great hall, racing down the stairs faster than a snitch with Malfoy and Potter hot on its tail. 

.

Just sitting on a bench beside Hermione as a flurry of owls and the occasional other bird entered the hall, she had time to pour a goblet of pumpkin juice before five owls headed for her, and one grey feather-duster was on a collision course for the juice-jug. She caught it out of the air before it hit, dumping Errol on the table beside her plate and taking the heavy package from his locked claws after a moment's struggle. The other owls with functional landing-gear and a hover ability dropped their parcels in front of her with care not to hit their fallen comrade, one squishy light parcel smacking her over the head before it fell to her lap. They took off again in the outpouring of owls that fled once their mail was delivered, all but Errol. She'd have to dump him off at the owlery with the house elf that cared for the birds and hope the old thing would be able to flap home. That, or box him up and get a school owl to deliver him back to her parents. 

In the meantime, she had _presents!_

Books from her mother and father, new copies of two that she'd read to pieces at just seven, Eight Days of Luke having undergone substantial abuse from Bill and Charlie before her, and Fire and Hemlock having been close to falling apart before her mother had bought it and tried to spellotape it better for her. A tiny tissue-wrapped bundle fell out of the crumpled wrapping paper when she went to fold it, and she opened it curiously. A fine silver chain lay within, just long enough to go around her wrist, and she opened the card that came with the package. _Honey, happy birthday! The bracelet was your grandmother's, don't break it or she'll rise from the grave and break you._ The writing changed from her mother's to her father's, for he added,_ She's just kidding. I think_. 

Laughing at the rest of the message, in which her mother hoped she'd made it to sweet sixteen not entirely devoid of kisses, but if it went any further than that, her father still had a shovel and a patch of ground out the back that needed fertilizer, and they sent their best wishes. They would have sent her cake, too, but Errol was barely up to delivering two books, cake would have killed him. 

Well, that decided it. She was sending Errol back home in a box with ventilation holes, and a note. 'Thanks for the prezzies. Send me cake.' 

She was ripping into the next package--a tiny box with silver and sapphire earrings from Bill--when a blur of dark red and black arrived beside her, earning a "Get back to your own table!" from Hermione. 

Emeryth Zabini snorted and flopped down between Ginny and the older prefect, answering Hermione with a brief "Cram it, Granger," and propping an elbow on the table by Errol to lean over and see Ginny's mail, taking a bite of the scone that she'd carted over with her. "Loot! What'd you get? And here. Happy birthday." 

Ginny blinked in bemusement as Emeryth dropped a light box covered in black paper onto her lap. "Is it safe to open it now?" 

Glancing around the table to see almost all the Gryffindors watching her with various levels of suspicion and distaste, the younger girl shook her head. "Nah. You can peek at a corner of it, though." 

Ginny did so, ripping a tiny tear in the very corner and recognising the logo on the carton immediately. "Thoughtful of you." 

"I figured. What came from home then?" 

Putting the box carefully under her books with a gesture to indicate 'these', Ginny opened the squashy package that she identified as being from Angelina after rattling the heavy envelopes from Fred, George, Percy and Charlie, hearing metallic jingling inside. "Money, jewellery, and..." rolling out the black fabric inside, she held up a very short dress that would, she thought, only just fit her. "A dress fit for a lady of _very_ ill repute!" 

"Oh, it looks good," Emeryth said, glancing from Ginny to the dress to Ginny again. "Who has the taste and the desire to send you something like that? Guessing that it wasn't your mum, of course." 

"Johnson. M'brother's girl. You know, Quidditch captain from last year. She's taken it upon herself to clothe the naked Weasley girl." Ginny smiled ruefully in memory of her attempts to persuade Angelina she didn't need that much, and Angelina's forceful comments about how she liked shopping, had more than enough clothes herself for the moment, and she didn't need her replacement on the team going half-naked through the school year. Angelina'd then agreed not to buy too much, which promptly went out the window when she'd continued spying just the thing for Ginny. It had been good that Fred was there then, all jokes aside, 'cause they'd needed someone to carry everything back to Diagon Alley for them. 

"Bloody good thing. We don't need you wandering about the halls sans clothing each weekend and after school--you'd get really cold." 

"Shut up, bitch." Ginny poked her tongue out at the Slytherin, snickering at Hermione's shocked expression. Hermione might think that Slytherins were all bitches, but it was one thing to think it and another thing for Ginny to say so out loud. 

"Would, but I have to get back, actually. See you in class." Emeryth got up with an odd sort of grace, leaning forward to kiss her quickly on the top of her head before dashing away. "Enjoy your day, Gin." 

A slight undertone to Emeryth's words, one she couldn't even identify until it was gone, flipped her back into the memories of her dreams. Into the moment of Tom kissing her, telling her '_Tonight_'. 

"Thank you..." 

.

Incedo veneficus hora. 

Words of power when spoken at the right moment. He might have escaped the diary for a while at any time, gained blood from Ginny at any time, but the witching hour was the time of most potent magics. He was almost real here, almost flesh as well as spirit. The fact that _no one_ could interrupt them at this time, that no one could detect any magic used because from the outsider's perspective it was gone in a flash, not lasting even half a second and not long enough to register on any of the Ministry or any of the school's detection systems. That, and... there was a beautiful poetry to using _this_ time. 

Resting the diary on Ginny's chest as he scooped her up in his arms, whispering "Sorpor," in her ear as she stirred, attuned to the movements of the witching hour as she was by repeated exposure, Tom shifted his grip slightly and backed slowly out through the curtains. The dormitory door opened at a nudge of his toes, and the torches that lit the stair down were frozen as they had flickered at the exact moment the hour began, dimly fluid light casting a ghostly pallor over everything; the stairs, the door at the foot of them, Ginny's pale skin. It was the same in the common room, a scarce-lit space with red and gold furnishings, a banked fire, and a pair of house-elves poised unmoving in the positions they had been cleaning in. 

Pushing the portrait-door open, it shut behind them, the door's desire to let any who walked in this time pass outweighing the stiff painting's desire to stop any non-Gryffindor or make comment about how they shouldn't be out so late. Walking down the silent, unmoving stairs, through the entrance hall that was deathly-silent without even the sound of his footfalls, Tom was struck by the fanciful thought that he and Ginny were the only ones truly of that world. She was breathing softly, turning her face to him with a faint whimper when they descended into the dungeons. Soft, warm and alive. Fragile, so easy to break. But he wouldn't break her, not yet. 

He almost bumped into the caretaker as they rounded the corner past the Potions classrooms, the ugly man caught in argument with the sneering head of Slytherin house, latter person probably having just checked on his nest of little serpents and being on his way back to his office or his bed, and the former having obviously waylaid him waving evidence of misdeed with one arm flung out to try and stop Snape from passing by. He ducked under the arm, resisting the urge to wreak some sort of havoc; time was too precious. Anyway, anyone who would take charge of the dark house and show blatant favouritism of the students in face of scorn from other teachers was someone he could find respect for. 

Reaching the bare wall that concealed the entrance to the Slytherin common rooms and knocking politely on it, he didn't bother to hide the smirk that formed when the door opened for him. It would have been nowhere near so obliging for a member of any other house, suspicion of all things non-Slytherin was engrained in the stone by now, probably engrained in the stone since less than half a century after the founding of the school. It was almost amusing, that the door was more eager to open for him _without_ password, when time should be making the door slower to open, than it had been to open for teachers _with_ password from other houses at any regular hour of the day. Well, that wasn't entirely true, some Ravenclaw teachers had managed the door with little argument or fuss, but in general, in his day and before when bold Gryffindors and loyal Hufflepuffs would spring 'surprise checks' on his house to ensure none of them were conspiring with Grindelwald or toying with the dark arts, they would have had ample warning from the reluctant grinding of the door as it slid aside to let them in. As if any Slytherin would be so stupid as to practice the better side of magic in their very common room... that was what the dormitories were for. 

Walking a few swift steps to stand between the fourth and fifth lamps suspended from the ceiling, and ignoring the blond boy with the look of a Malfoy having sex on one of the sofas with a brunette girl, he reached out a hand to touch the rough stone wall, hissing in Parseltongue, "Blood of Salazar demands entrance." 

The wall slid open before him, revealing a black passageway. Illumination spells wouldn't work there on one's way down, steep stairs descended after five paces and a turn, he knew, and he could hazard a guess at why Slytherin had designed it so. The door closed after one made it three paces, as he did, and anyone who wasn't supposed to be there would tumble to severe injury and possibly death were they so stupid as to persevere in their search. He remembered the way to go down, avoiding the seventh, thirteenth and fifteenth stairs as a matter of course. _He_ would have been able to make them let go once they had seized his leg, but it was an unnecessary delay. Reaching the twenty-seventh step and carrying on down a scarcely-lit hallway after another turn, he smiled down at Ginny as he reached the room he'd intended to use. 

It was dusty, some thousand years or so with ventilation not doing much to keep it pristine, but the air was breathable and dry. Entropy hadn't claimed the room, preserving spells keeping almost everything intact throughout the centuries, and green-blue bubbles of light hovered near the high ceiling, brought back to life when they passed through the door. All in all, it was perfect for his plans. 

Silvery manacles still hung from the wall, and he wasted no time in standing Ginny against the wall, placing those manacles around her delicate wrists, and taking her wand away from her to lay it with the diary on the polished wood of the rack across the room. She slumbered on unknowing, and he left her for the moment, slipping back into the room that he had guessed to be Salazar's office some fifty years ago when he had first discovered it. The item he had wanted remained in Salazar's desk drawer, along with a silver serpent with eyes of sapphire on a light chain. Taking that while he was there, he sauntered back to the torture chamber with a light heart. 

She slept on, leaving him free to start slicing off her robes, the knife he had claimed from Salazar's office making short work of Ginny's clothes, a slice along each shoulder and one to sever the buttons leaving the robes to fall at her feet, swiftly followed by the blue shirt and jeans she wore underneath. Her feet were bare, and he swept the clothes away with one shove as he looked up at her, grinning half-madly at the sight. He had risen again to place the necklace on her, not just a lover's trinket but inscribed at the back with the initials RR and SS which had led him to some disturbing conclusions about the founders of Hogwarts, and just closed the clasp when Ginny woke up. 

In her favour she didn't ask stupid questions such as 'what are you doing' or try to tell him that he would never get away with his nefarious schemes, just started in shock, realised she was bound, and looked at him lucidly. Watched him toying with the knife. "Where are we?" 

"The chamber of secrets wasn't the only place hidden within these walls. This in particular? Salazar's dungeon, where he had his fun. Where I, too, anticipate a little fun." 

She didn't seem over-pleased with his answer, her eyes rolling back in her head as she slumped against the wall again, her consciousness slipping away... 

That was bad. She knew how to reach the depths of her mind, she'd tangled with it not two weeks before-- 

Dropping the knife to grab her by the shoulders and shake her roughly, calling to her, he wasn't rewarded with any response... 

.

She sunk fast, gracelessly, hearing Tom's cries for her to stop, his orders for her to return at once. The words almost held her, she almost_ wanted_ to return, but she wouldn't. No. He couldn't surprise her like that, couldn't shock her so and believe he could get away with it. 

She crashed straight through the darkness regardless of his voice, rolling to the centre of that crackling lightning, that he'd warned her against, realising only then how thin the coiling and tangling strands were, gossamer-thin with an ethereal light cast out into the darkness of her mind. One of the threads snapped under her hand, and she caught at the ends frantically, first try unsuccessful but the second one managing to snag both ends, preventing the tear from spreading. Images ripped through her mind as her hand closed on the threads; brightly-swirling colours she could taste and feelings she could hear, thoughts streaking into her stream of conscious from years back, the time Charlie had broken her doll and spent three weeks of his summer holidays building her a tree-house the Muggle way that had almost fallen down the moment it had finished if not for Bill using magic to hold it up and grow the tree around it, the time her mother hadn't been able to buy her new clothes for half a year because Percy was going off to Hogwarts and they needed all the money they had to purchase his school things, Fred using the Puffskein she and Ron shared as a damned Bludger, and--the moment Tom had written back to her for the very first time. 

Tom kissing her, in what she'd foolishly written off as a dream. He hadn't been cruel to her, and he'd known she thought it all a dream. He'd touched her in a way her mum would deem inappropriate, but she'd let him. Started it, more often than not. She'd told herself there was nothing wrong, she'd refused to go to a teacher for 'help' with Tom, she'd stayed. There was something there, something she wanted. 

She couldn't run from this. It was her responsibility, her life. He had been lost to her and she had brought him back. If it hadn't been for this, then for what? 

Kismet. 

Face her fate or fall through into madness, this was the time to choose. 

Pieces of thoughts, feelings, desires and memories swirled around her now, a whirlwind of butterflies. Some opalescent and clear, some dark in hues of blood-red, Slytherin-green, ink-flavoured-Bertie Bott's bean blue. Some black, difficult to see, impossible to see without the light of the only barrier between sanity and insanity. 

She called them to her, drew them all in. Light and dark, fragments of her that had been lost or wandering throughout her life. Her mind was awhirl now as slivers of herself pulled in their wings and fit themselves in where they best belonged, showing her a wider picture than she'd ever seen before. She remembered _everything,_ everything that had happened since she and Tom had remet, every incident of their nights together. Every touch, every longing she had. Every drop of blood, every time she'd sliced open her hand to share her life with him. 

The fragments of her mind that she held mended in her hand as she watched, knitting together stronger than before, flaring gold through the darkness, showing that nothing remained untied to her. It was time to return. She spun upwards, leaving a shimmering silver tail that faded quickly as she reached the top, as she landed behind her eyes again with a shock. Tom had been standing before her, touching her, but even as she saw him, he went flying back a few feet, landing lightly on his feet and one hand. 

He jumped up quickly, crossing the gap between them. 

.

"Stupid, infuriating girl!" he snapped at her, seeing the comprehension in her eyes, shaking her roughly. "Do you have any idea what you almost did--_again!_" 

She gazed up at him calmly, showing a lingering fear...but not of _him_...and strength. "I faced madness, Tom. That's what it is, isn't it? Insanity. If I had fallen, there's no path back." 

She was too calm. He kissed her fiercely, only releasing her when she had to sink back, panting for air. He then nodded curtly, still holding her chin. "Only strong witches and wizards can find it without the aid of torture. Very, very few have returned to tell the tale. That you managed it once unconscious was quite a revelation. That you did it again..." 

Ginny didn't seem to understand exactly what he was saying, and he let her go to pace back across the room, leaning against the rack casually. 

"...I'm ...surprised, to say the least, but you've been surprising me constantly over the past month. I never thought that you would be so easy. You're a mess of contradictions, my little Ginny." 

She shook her head, laughing at him, or at herself. "I'm not little." 

More revealed by what she didn't say than what she did. She was his Ginny, she'd made her choice awake, in more possession of her senses than ever before. And for the half-life of him, he couldn't foresee how this dance would end. He didn't really want to change his original plans, but she had changed, and therefore so must he. He had planned to see her dead, when she had first written to him this time. Planned to leave her body for the Potter boy to find and weep over, but she didn't care for him any more and he cared not a whit for her. The only feelings she harboured for Potter were distaste and mild anger, she had thrown her allegiances in with him. Tom Riddle, Slytherin, last descendent of Salazar--oh, and the boy that had almost killed her a few years earlier. 

"You changed me, Tom." She was staring at him unswervingly, a curious gleam in her eyes. "My first year, you must remember. You tainted me, you made me what I am today." 

She had changed _him_. She had made him like her, really like her instead of just pretending to get his way. She had shown him the fire within her, pride, anger and loyalty, for even when she had to have_ some_ idea that he was influencing her, she had pushed it away and pretended it wasn't a problem. Instead of running to Dumbledore, who had done such a brilliant job of protecting her the last time, she had turned closer to him. The thought that she could be expelled if she was found out hadn't even entered her mind, she just...wanted him. 

And she was watching him still, neither defiant nor submissive, only expectant. Anticipating that whatever he would do wouldn't go too badly for her, a slightly feral smile playing on her lips as he thought. 

She was entirely too sure of herself for a nubile young girl chained to a dungeon wall and clad only in her underwear, defenceless as far as her wand went, a good ten steps away from her and right beside him. 

He picked up the knife again, the blade razor-sharp after a thousand years, and set the diary at her feet. She didn't try to kick it--or kick him--away, and he knew full well that a girl with six brothers would have some idea how to fight. Rising, so close to her, he idly wondered where to draw the final blood from, the last he needed to become whole again, fully corporeal. She drew a deep breath under his scrutiny, gaze darting away for barely a second before she raised her eyes to meet his once more. "The witching hour won't last forever." 

A prickle of fury sparked in his mind at her comment, and he flicked the knife up, slicing through the thin red satiny straps of her bra in a single eternity stroke, one last downwards slash ruining the garment entirely to send the glossy fabric fluttering to the ground like a dying bird. "Shall I start here?" he whispered in her ear, tracing the knife along her jugular then down, "...or maybe here?" The cold silver trailed down to her hip, made as if to cut her underwear off or more. "How about here?" 

She nuzzled against him with a low moan, straining for more contact with him despite her hands being chained to the wall. His shock was revived another time when she didn't flinch away instead, when the redhead tried to get closer to him. She sighed when he pulled back to regard her with scepticism, disappointment warring with confusion on her face and her body still unmarked. 

"Tom, give me the knife." She looked thoughtful for a second before adding, "Unchain me. One hand will do." 

All innocence was gone from her now. Now she was gazing at him with lust-darkened eyes, actually _enjoying_ the situation, and wanting her to both let him go and give her a weapon. Before this night, before the final bloodletting, he would have had to give it to her. This was the only time he could wield the knife, but if she hadn't cooperated each time before, it would have gone badly for him. 

She had. 

Making his decision quickly, all ire fading in that moment of letting go, he reversed the knife and placed it in her hand, unlocking one of the manacles that held her. Ginny switched the knife to her still-restrained hand, staring up with narrowed eyes to see something in the dim light. She nodded minutely, touched the blade to the side of her hand and only flinched once when the edge bit through her skin, blood welling in its wake as the knife sliced along under her fingers. The gash ran almost straight along her palm when she'd finished cutting, lowering her hand without a single drop spilled. "How much do you need?" 

"Less." Tom answered her quietly, near-mesmerised by her graceful movements as she held her cut hand out over the diary, blood falling slowly in huge drops. 

The diary was waiting. It knew the blood was coming, and he began to feel sick, nausea close to taking over if only he was capable of throwing up. 

One. 

Two. 

Three. His not-quite-corporeal skin started to burn. 

Four. 

Five. 

Six. Knife-slashes all over, stinging in agony. 

Seven. 

Eight. 

Nine. Stabbing pains running through him. 

Ten. 

Eleven. 

Twelve. His vision blurred and darkened. He fell to his hands and knees. 

Thirteen. His world exploded. 

.

The diary burst into brilliant green flame at her feet as Tom fell, flaring so bright that she went half-blind in the moment it took her to snatch her hand away from over it, shrinking back against the wall to avoid getting roasted. Her next realisation was that it burned without heat, sending a chill through her instead that went right down to her bones, as insufficiently as they were insulated. Crossing her unbound arm over her chest as she tried to see the moment the balefire burned out enough to make anything of the room beyond it, she stifled the urge to call out Tom's name and waited. If she didn't say anything, if she didn't move, he'd come to her. She couldn't break the deathly silence that lingered overhead, couldn't think, couldn't breathe with the cold that froze her if she drew breath. Seconds, minutes, hours, _days_ passed in that short space of time before the witching hour finished, when the diary snuffed out like an extinguished candle, leaving nothing behind but dust. The spells that kept the room lit died with it, leaving her blinking in an attempt to adjust yet again to the change in the light, to see beyond the afterimage of green, when something stirred on the paving stones in front of her. 

The shadow took shape, standing slowly, reaching out to her and moving closer. She steeled herself for icy cold again, sighing in relief when the hand touched her face. Warmth. 

_Tom._

Traced soft fingertips over her skin, finding her lips, down, along her neck, resting a hand on her shoulder after a long moment. There was the faintest glow of blue before her eyes, and lips met hers in a kiss. Not soft or impassioned as they had been before, but hard. Needing. An arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him. Skin on skin, his heat warming her. Fire, he was fire and she was ice, melting into him. He didn't speak, laboured breathing all she could hear from him as his kisses moved lower, turned into bites, he was biting at her shoulder hard enough for a reaction of combined pleasure and pain, switching to the other when she choked out a wordless moan and almost fell, would have fallen if he hadn't been holding her up. The stone against her back was warmer than she felt at that moment, although she burned inside her mind, lost in the reactions Tom elicited from her. 

Falling into madness was all too possible for her then, just slipping away backwards until it was too late, until she crashed and burned out like a meteor fragment coming into Earth, nothing but a sliver of her left, if that. She didn't let herself, throwing herself forward to take everything she had coming, good or bad--and oh, it'd all been good so far. Her free arm around Tom's neck, comfortable for all that he was as tall as Ron was, nipping at his throat when he raised his head to study her in the near-darkness. One of the illuminating spells had come back to life fitfully, casting a faint sea-green light from far away, and in it his eyes shone, an anchor of blue to keep her there with him, when a last fragment of her personality that hadn't turned with her, hadn't made this choice, tried to make her flee. She refused. 

One of his hands ran down her vulnerable side, light, teasing, as he divested her of the last of her clothing, running a hand back up her leg to curve over her hip, trailing the line of the bone underneath smooth skin. He captured her with another kiss, insistent, demanding. Already half-leaning against the wall, clinging to Tom as his hands settled on her hips, it was nothing to the muscles of a Chaser that Angelina had trained for her to pull herself up, one leg settling around him just below the waist as he pushed her back, the wall supporting her as much as Tom when he entered her. 

Pain rippled over her at that motion, making her whimper and dig her heels in, raking her hand over his bare back in an urge to let him have a little of what _she_ felt, sensation stabbing down her every nerve before the torment twisted inside her mind to ecstasy. He was sending her higher and higher with each movement, each touch, and the few hungry kisses they shared spiked the wave she was soaring on to new levels until she crashed on the rocks, her breathing ragged as she shuddered in his arms, the maelstrom of searing pleasure and soothing ache releasing her torturously slow. 

The sensation wasn't close to fading out until Tom reached his release, biting down on tender flesh so hard she spasmed once more, soft scream caught and held before she choked on it, her head lolling back and a glint of silver catching her eye the only thing that stopped her from whirling away in the sweet agony rushing through stinging skin and bruised flesh. Silver to bind her to him and silver to free her. 

Moments later he looked up at her, satisfaction clear in his eyes, and she tightened the arm around his neck, letting him feel the edge of the blade, dropped from above into her waiting hand whilst he'd been too occupied to care, against his skin. 

She broke the silence after long seconds, words unable to fall until something switched inside her mind, when they snaked along her tongue, slipping out almost in a hiss to her ears. "Welcome back. How do you feel about unchaining me now?" 


	7. Chapter 7

**Walking Higher  
**by Faith Accompli. 

Notes; Characters either property of Rowling, younger bit-players with last names stolen from older students in the books, or very rarely mine. _This story was originally written in 2002. Some things may not be hip to canon, y'know? No, I'm not changing Ginny's name. No, Snape is not the root of all evil, and this story is not HBP-compliant. Yes, I did read the books. kthx._ Thank you very much to those of you who reviewed, both new readers and those who are back this second time around. And, _muted colours_ - no, I have never written and I have never read Snape&Hermione with tantric sex. Sorry. It was just Ginny being sarky.

* * *

Ginny held a knife to his throat, hissing a request to him in his tongue, the tongue of snakes, with her hand shaking ever so slightly as she fought to keep the blade steady, her body branded with his teeth and claimed utterly by him. Her gaze was clear and he didn't doubt for a moment that she wouldn't cut, but... she had a newfound propensity for spilling blood, and she shivered once before forcing herself to stillness. 

She had also said "Welcome back." 

He nodded, reaching up to unlock the second manacle, stepping back a pace as she retracted the knife and stood on her own two feet, taking her hand to examine her chafed wrist. Catching her as her knees decided they weren't up to standing, halting her fall, he held her close as she quivered against him, her head resting on his chest. "Here," she hissed quietly, holding up the knife. "Take it." 

He took the knife without comment, gathering her up into his arms with a rapid indrawing of breath at the heightened sensation of skin on skin, almost as intense as their tryst against the wall had been minutes before. 

She didn't protest when he set her on the edge of the rack, her hands on her knees to try and minimise her shaking. She didn't speak. She watched instead, glanced around at the room she could see a little clearer now, two more of the lighting spells sliding back into place, she watched... and wondered. 

Gathering up her somewhat damaged robes and spreading them over the bed of the rack, surreptitiously removing her wand to drop it on the floor, it was a simple matter for Tom to guide her into lying back, watching her stretch with a kittenlike mewl and a wince. She closed her eyes a moment, then looking up at him wide-eyed in some unreadable emotion when he tugged her left hand up above her head and wrapped the end of the rope attached to the wheel around her wrist twice, when he checked to make sure the wheel was locked so she couldn't slip free at any moment. 

Moving around the other side to fasten her free wrist, his hand closing on empty air, he dragged his mind out of the gutter long enough to glare. Ginny wiggled her fingers at him in a flirtatious little wave as she waited patiently for him to finish tying her up. Snorting in something close to laughter at her acquiescence, he tied her hand back with extra care and went to the end of the rack, tying slender ankles down, one to each corner. Hopping lightly up beside the redhead and admiring his work, the way she lay there, taut, tense under his fingertips as he traced over her ribs, skin starting to flush again but still somewhat pale, Tom lowered his head to nip at the soft exposed skin, grinning inside when she arched up the half-inch she could manage, her body craving his touch almost as much as he desired to feel hers. 

Her touch, her scent, her taste...all more real, more intense, than any of the interludes he'd had before being trapped within the diary. All of them, all were paling in comparison to what he shared with Ginny at that moment. There was the high probability that he enjoyed it so because it was in essence his first time again, because it had been so long, but there was a spark between them. A spark that he would be overjoyed to fan into a flame... 

Glancing back to check that he had tied her firmly enough, seeing that despite her testing they held fast, he was almost gratified at the sweetly wicked smile she gave him, telling that she wanted more of him for all that her first experience had been a far cry from the average adolescent witch's fantasy. 

Young Virginia was anything but average, more evidence to that fact gathering as he claimed her and she gasped, as he hissed gently that he would lead this dance, and she understood, the delicate nuances of Parseltongue translating perfectly in her mind, probably without her even aware that they had been using the language exclusively from the moment he had taken her. Sensation intensified tenfold, a glorious fire that raced through and through his nerves when she shifted her hips beneath him, learning quickly, her eyes tight shut as he kissed her neck, forcing himself not to bite, her rapturous moans giving hushed voice to her pleasure. One hand twitched above her as she smothered the urge to try and snap the ropes binding her, to have something, anything to hold on to. He understood that urge, had felt it when he was reborn, cast into flesh with a thousand new feelings, filled with the desire to have her--and he had given in. 

"Think of this as an exercise in control." His words hadn't been intended aloud, but somehow they had come out, she had heard. 

Her eyes opened with rich darkness overtaking the usual soft grey-blue to see him watching her, his hands heavy on her shoulders in warm contact as they moved, as he led her, drove her to pleasure with only undertones of agony burning through her, and her voice was rough as she fought to maintain composure and answer, "Controlling--you?" 

Too cocky by half, and that was becoming a desirable trait in the pliant redhead beneath him, the girl who would bend but never break. She was warmer by far than she had been when he had first taken her into his arms, her warmth now stoking the fire within him, pushing him on to new heights, the domino effect falling into place and Ginny's responses, murmured words considered sacrilege or very rude in the greater part of the world, all her little movements sending him flying higher than ever before. For a moment he thought she was going to scream, but her eyes flashed and she bit his wrist viciously rather than give in to that, tasting his blood. 

"If you're a screamer..." he offered chivalrously when her teeth released him, raising his hand to lick the hot blood that trickled free, capturing her mouth with a swift kiss. 

"You first--" Ginny managed between gasps and moans that set a feverish pace for their dance through the flames of lust, proving herself a liar mere seconds later as the fire consumed them, mewling loud enough for echoes to resound throughout the dungeon, wrapping them in gossamer chain and binding them, the sound finally subsiding as he sighed, releasing her shoulders after pulling back a fraction, studying her contented expression with amusement as he considered taking up the knife again. His blood had been sweet, but hers was so much sweeter. Rich metal, like kissing Death's scythe and living on, soul-seared by the moment. 

Before, he had entertained thoughts of disposing of her. He couldn't be sure if they had been completely serious, but now... _she wanted him, at that moment wanted nothing else, and he loved it_... Dangerous games, playing with fire, and burning would be so pleasant--he always had liked the pain. 

.

Ginny froze under his comfortable weight, a shiver running down her spine. No realisation of great magnitude streaked through her mind, no 'dear God, what have I _done?_', the pleasant sting of light wounds inflicted that she knew would bother her a little come light of day not figuring into her higher mental processes, but instead a thought that went something like '...what's...crawling...on me?' "Tom?" 

"Yessss?" he drawled out slowly, trailing a hand down her side thoughtfully. 

"What's...holding me down? It feels weird..." 

He looked over to her hands, automatic reply dying on his lips, his eyes widening in mild surprise. Craning her head back to see what he saw, Ginny gulped nervously. _Snakes_. Grey-brown and black, tongues out tasting the air,_ coiled around her arms. _

"Down." Tom ordered them, and they obeyed, slowly freeing themselves from her wrists, from her ankles, slithering away and landing on the floor. "Nice work," he commented lightly to her, laughing when she hauled herself up on one elbow to gaze at him in shock. "You don't think I did that, do you?" 

"I don't... my wand, it's not--and I didn't _want--_" she protested, denying instinctively that she did any such thing while a part of her traitorous mind noted that the ropes had--changed--at the exact moment she had... found relief. Wandless magic was usually the domain of children too young for wands, when their magical powers first surfaced, usually when under great stress or in times of emotion. Sex would just possibly qualify. "I didn't_ mean_ to." 

"It's not a bad thing, my ophidian enchantress." He was tracing serpentine patterns over her hip now, a far-away look in his eyes. They cleared somewhat and he reached over her, fumbling for something at the side of the rack, drawing up the knife that had sent fear and hunger through her the moment she had seen it, silver and razor sharp, the handle cast all of a piece with the blade in the shape of a serpent, bronze adding a hint of colour to the delicately-defined scales and offsetting the emerald chips that formed eyes. Traced over her skin with it now, not so deep as to score more than a white line. Now he stared at her, mesmerising, and she nodded with a short gulp. Nervous anticipation raced in her blood, almost eager to be spilled again. He could heal any injuries he inflicted with a few simple words, any pain would be fleeting, transcendent and sickly beautiful. 

With the first cut she gasped, sinking back with her hands beneath her head, keeping an eye out to follow his progress. The first started on her thigh and twisted up until it reached her hip, a delicate flick curving into a snake's head, the second cut snaking around the first, a double-helix in their bodies almost to the tips of their tails. At the third cut as blade pressed to flesh, she couldn't help squirming, her toes curling as she tried to relax back. The pain was excruciating, a pleasurable thrill following swiftly after, but the feelings--the intense concentration in Tom's eyes, the desire and the longing made her shiver inside. It _was_ beautiful, blood welling up in the serpentine whorls and swoops as the third was added, and she licked her lips unconsciously. He looked to her in question, one eyebrow raised almost quizzically. 

"It's...exquisite," she murmured after swallowing, glancing away under his further regard. 

He smiled, tracing over the first cut with a fingertip, drawing away blood and holding it to her lips. Half-uncertain, growing rapidly less so, she licked. At her action, Tom smiled, shifting down to lap at the blood starting to streak down the side of her leg and hip, raising after a moment to kiss her. She almost wished Aura and Catherine could see, what with their talk after lights out of what they did with boys, and how they laughed at her behind her back for not having 'gone all the way', but they could never know. Would never know. If they only knew what she did, she thought when Tom returned to slicing delicate patterns in soft skin, as they slumbered peacefully tucked into their beds like good little girls. If only the world could know...she was Witch, she was powerful, in her mind--for a short time, as she had climaxed--she had held the answers to_ everything._ She was blood and spirit, giver of life burned into flesh, party to his dark seduction. And it was their secret. 

.

The light was brighter when she opened her eyes, early-morning light, which might mean... 

Snapping awake with blinding clarity, sitting bolt-upright with a twinging ache and the arm that had been thrown lightly over her breasts sometime while she slept sliding down to her lap along with three snakes that had crawled over them for warmth, Ginny cursed aloud before shaking Tom gently by the shoulder. "What time is it?" 

He answered without so much as opening his eyes, muttering a "Seven twenty," and trying to pull her back down with him, under the fluffy duvet he had transfigured of her robes, into the nest of serpents. Every snake in the castle had probably crawled in somehow, twenty, maybe thirty--the way they coiled could have made her off in her estimate by some number. Most of them had curled about Tom, less about her, although she thought she recognised one completely black individual that fell from her neck as having been an innocent length of rope the night before. 

"I gotta go! Slytherins crawl into breakfast starting at eight, and once that starts their common room'll probably have someone in it throughout! If I'm not up there by then I'll be stuck here for the day." 

"Abandoning me so soon?" 

"Food. Drink. Possibly clothes--all useful things. If you'd rather wait 'til midnight..." she trailed off, rubbing her sore wrist and deliberately ignoring the streaks of dried blood over her hip and stomach before continuing, "...I'd rather not. Ron and Hermione have been watching me too much lately, if I'm not there they might ask questions that are best avoided. This way they see and don't talk." 

"Mmm. Yes. Go. Can you get back unseen?" Tom looked up at her, eyes shining in anticipation. 

"I think so." She was still mulling over that plan in the back of her mind, but when she prodded it thoughtfully, it snapped back at her with a feeling of optimism. That done, she was about to start moving when Tom's hand ran over her leg, sending a shiver down her spine and making her entertain the idea of lingering until the witching hour next struck. Mere moments later his hand reappeared from under the covers, an adder no more than eight inches long held lightly, which he passed to her. Calmly accepting it with the realisation that the snake had been coiled around her knee, Ginny smiled slightly when he ordered it to ensure she could find her way back and told him "Two hours. Three at most. If I don't return by eleven, send out a search party." 

"I will." With those final words Tom drifted back to sleep, leaving her only to brush a light kiss to his forehead and slip away, gathering her clothes and finding very little that was wearable without the application of mending charms which she tried at once. To no avail was her small repertoire, quickly exhausted, and she had no desire to wake Tom again for the purpose of stealing back her duvet-transfigured robes, so that left her standing in her knickers and necklace with a tiny snake curled around her neck. 

A tapestry of a serpent and a raven locked in killing embrace caught in her peripheral vision from where it hung on the far wall and she swiped at it quickly after dropping her wand by Tom, shaking it to clear at least seven hundred years' worth of dust from the soft wool. It proved sufficient to cover her from chest to knees, and while she wouldn't make it to Gryffindor without unnecessary notice, Tom _had_ said they were under Slytherin... 

.

"Pst, _Em_." Emeryth ignored the quiet voice the minute it took for her to realise it wasn't her dorm's token early-riser Lucrezia, because Luc always hit the shower before she considered herself fit for human company, and she hadn't heard the water running. Her voice was far higher, too, this voice sounded like Ginny. That was ridiculous, though, there was no reason or way Ginny could be here that early when she was in the sanctuary of her bed. Not without--well, she knew nothing like that had happened.

She peeked out from under the blankets and winced. It_ was _Weasley, standing there holding her curtains open and letting the dim grey light through from the circle of enchanted ceiling set in stone above the beds. Her early-morning visitor was also not wearing much in the way of clothes, holding up what looked like a dark towel with her hair tumbling down over her shoulders. _Not_ a way anyone would want to be caught in the Slytherin dormitories. Reaching quickly before any of her dorm-mates could notice the lion in the serpents' lair, she yanked Ginny onto her bed and closed the curtains firmly, casting _Confuto_ to obscure noise and _Lumos_ with her wand before she took the time to inquire "What the fuck are you doing here?"

The little yelp that Ginny gave as she hit the bed didn't escape her notice.

Ginny wrapped what turned out to be a tapestry more firmly about herself, seeming hesitant to speak until she managed "Um. I was...I was with someone, but they're asleep now, and my clothes are torn up..."

"With someone." She'd crept down to do a Slytherin, and lost her clothes--and she was lowering the tapestry, shaking her hair back, to reveal an impressive-looking set of teeth marks set in pale skin. "Unholy fuck."

"Three times." Ginny muttered under her breath, tugging the cover back up. "So I came to you. Thought you might loan me something more substantial so I can get back to my dorm."

Putting a hand to her head and falling back into her pillows with a moan, Emeryth nodded and sat up again after a minute or two. "Right. No worries." Getting up and slipping through the bed curtains to leave Ginny there, she searched the wardrobe for something suitable, waving a morning greeting to Julia and Pru as they followed Eithne off to breakfast leaving the room deserted but for her. She added her own green-tinted black weekend robes to the underthings, shirts and long skirts, then settled on semi-formal robes of black with green velvet trim for her Gryffindor friend. They were just a little too long for her as yet, one of those purchases her mother had insisted on getting slightly oversized 'to grow into'. They would pass.

Returning to her bed and dumping the armload of clothes on top of it, she quickly sorted them into two piles and pushed one to Ginny, shrugging her pyjama top off and switching it with the plain black shirt, sneaking a sideways glance at the other girl while Ginny grabbed a similar shirt out of the clothes she had been given and dropped the tapestry, displaying fresh-looking cuts and dried blood streaking from knee to navel all over her left side in addition to that over her chest and shoulders from mouth-inflicted injuries. "...saint merde. _Abstergo_."

A soft whirlwind of cold water droplets swirled around Ginny's skin twice, washing away the blood and setting her shivering, arms crossed over her chest until she looked down at Tom's knifework of earlier that morning, saw the fresh blood seeping up slowly from the unhealed wounds. She'd been too carried away after he'd finished to ask him to heal her, and when she'd awoken it had seemed low on the list of priorities--it should have scabbed over already, but it hadn't--maybe wouldn't, of its own accord. Emeryth was watching her strangely as she ran a thumb pad over one of the cuts, sucking it contemplatively, and she felt sheepish at the other girl's gaze. "It--tastes good. Try it." Emeryth looked uncertain, but bowed her head and licked along another cut, causing her to tense uncertainly. That shouldn't have felt like that, shouldn't have stirred desires in her that Tom had brought to light the night before, but the action ran fire through her nerves again, made her want to do exactly as a random Ravenclaw had told her the other day after the prefects' meeting--get screwed.

"Not bad." Emeryth admitted, sitting back to wriggle out of silk pyjama bottoms and swap them for a long black velvet skirt, indicating to the clothes Ginny now held with little or no motion to put them on. "C'mon, get dressed. I think we should get something to fix your bleeding, it's not exactly discreet."

She nodded quickly, pulling the shirt on and following that with the red-black silk skirt that the Slytherin had no problems with loaning, nor, from Emeryth's flip of the hand, with getting blood on. "I don't want to see Pomfrey, she'll have questions."

"Fine. I'll get a healing potion from Snape."

Ginny stared at Emeryth in wide-eyed horror. "That's _not_ better!"

Snorting sardonically as she pulled her robes on and swatted the bed curtains aside, getting to her feet with a not-uncharacteristic eye roll, she took a few steps to the expanse of bare wall between her wardrobe and Julia Trucido's bed, glancing at both hands before settling on the right, balling it into a fist and slamming it into the wall. A resounding curse of "_Fuck!_" almost vibrated the stone of the dungeon room, Emeryth drawing her hand back as soon as she could consciously move it back to examine, deciding that the dribbling blood and exposed flesh between grazed skin was sufficient to not require a second hit. "Said--_I'd_ go. Might not give it to you anyway, won't refuse me."

Rising quickly, borrowed robes in place and feet slipped into grey soft-soled shark slippers with bead teeth that lay at the foot of Emeryth's bed, Ginny was about to both protest the actions Emeryth had taken and thank her, when they were interrupted by the bathroom door opening and a blonde girl glancing out. 

"'Ryth, what have you d...I'm not even going to ask what she's doing here in your clothes, am I?" 

"No." Emeryth answered cheerfully. "Thanks, Luc. Appreciated--we're off now." 

"You know you're bleeding, right?" the blonde asked as Emeryth winked and dragged Ginny out into the hall with her unhurt hand, towing her towards the Slytherin common room. "Right." 

"One question," Emeryth asked abruptly, her gaze flickering between Ginny and the floor. "Was it worth it?" 

Ginny sighed as they wandered purposefully Professor Snape's office beside the main Potions classroom. "Oh, yeah." 

"Good. Otherwise I'd have marched you up to Snape and made you tell him yourself--and you walk the walk of the freshly fucked, you couldn't lie about it successfully." 

"You wouldn't!" She could only yelp as Emeryth winked and pushed her into hiding in a deep-set doorway to a storage closet, almost wide enough to pass for a proper alcove, carrying on past the two remaining doors it took to reach Snape's office. She heard a brisk knock and the door opening half a minute later, Professor Snape's voice holding while not a warm undertone, at least a cool one instead of the ice prevalent in his classes. "It's early, Zabini, I trust you've a good r...dark gods, what did you _do_ to your hand?" Something akin to concern was audible from the Head of Slytherin now--and wouldn't her brother just die laughing at that? Or possibly he'd just run into another rant about favouritism... 

"Tried to hit Nott. He sidestepped too fast. Fist, wall. Wall, fist. Pain, much of it." 

"And you opted not to go to Pomfrey because...?" 

"She's a nosy bitch?" Emeryth tried after a moment's thought, drawing a chuckle from Snape. 

"Fair enough. Get in here." The door closed heavily behind Emeryth, leaving Ginny alone with her musings and the young adder now coiled under her robes happily, tongue flicking out to taste her shoulder now and then. 

"Sit." Professor Snape led Emeryth to take the chair in front of the desk, glancing at her knuckles before he strode to the wall behind and unlocked a small cupboard with matched snakes entwined on the door, withdrawing a medium-sized capped ampoule with a golden liquid in it. Emeryth looked at it dubiously. Considering the vial for half a moment and deciding it would be the best for the wound, making a mental note to inform Flitwick it was time to read more of the Brothers Grimm works to Fawkes and harvest the bird's tears, Snape moved back to lean on the side of his desk, arms crossed. "If I were to say that I think your injury was related in no way to an interaction with Mr. Nott, and suggest that I might inquire further information of him, what would you say?" 

Emeryth froze in her seat, slowly raising her eyes to meet Snape's dark gaze. "I would say that you can question Theo to your heart's content, he will verify my story." 

Nott would lie for her, she meant. He knew it, and was quite well aware she wouldn't think it could slip by him. It verged on amusing, the intricate power-plays and unwritten treaties that ran rampant in his house, so complex that even Hufflepuff and Gryffindor teachers--were they to hear of them--would be unable to untangle it to make sense. And it was first-nature to his snakes. The other houses could keep their bravery and loyalty, cunning and the ability to use what little brain one was granted was a far more useful skill. 

"One mouthful. Eat afterwards. Drink up." He gave her the vial with no further questioning as to just what had really driven her to fracturing her hand, and she volunteered no more information, looking askance at him before raising it to her lips with a muttered 'thank you', draining a good third of the contents and handing him back the vial without another word, turning and fleeing. 

Emeryth bolted through the door that opened easily at a yank, trying simultaneously to neither swallow any more than she already had, or start coughing and gagging, subsequently followed by throwing up or snorting the potion out through her nose. Ginny remained exactly where she'd left her, looking up in alarm before recognition showed in her expression. That look quickly turned to one of shock when Emeryth grabbed Ginny by the front of her robes and hauled the taller girl down the two inches it required for her to reach Ginny's lips, which opened after not even half a moment. The stray thought of '_You little witch!_' crossed her mind briefly, and returned in force when the potion had gone, but the tongue had not. Aside from the nauseating taste of diluted phoenix tears mixed with belladonna, aconite, boneset and mandrake--and pennyroyal to prevent the emetic properties of boneset from being truly effective--the sensation was pleasant if a little disturbing, quite enjoyable if one let oneself get carried away and didn't react adversely to Ginny's hands moving to the small of one's back, around one's neck...something was definitely wrong there, even for someone that went both ways. Ginny had just left someone else, one of her own _housemates_, and was here with her now-- 

Opening her eyes and pulling back with some hesitation, Emeryth was just stepping free of Ginny's arms in time to see Pansy staggering by on her way to breakfast. Oh, this boded well. And Ginny'd just come from an assignation that morning, which meant that _someone_ at the Slytherin table was going to be thrilled to death with her. 

Resting her almost-healed hand on her forehead with a heavy sigh, Emeryth glanced through slitted eyes to see Ginny looking just as confused as she felt, and shook her head. "Ew. Gryffindor-spit. C'mon, let's get to breakfast. Need something to wash the revolting taste out of my mouth." 

Ginny's eyes narrowed a second before she realised just what level her friend was on and wrinkled her nose in mock-disgust. "Oh, you think you have problems? I kissed a snake. Bloody revolting, that was. Poison." 

"Far worse from this side of the fence, I assure you. Still, you probably won't live through it." They hurried quickly towards the hall, hoping to arrive before or coinciding with Pansy in hopes of stopping the girl from spreading what would be a particularly juicy piece of gossip during this time of dormancy in the so-called 'war' and subsequent lack of interestingly gory outside news owing in no small part to Fudge's prevaricating and Voldemort's willingness to let the minister dig his own grave and half of Europe's besides. "You going to tell me who did you?" Emeryth asked casually, taking Ginny's hand in her own after they had bumped into each other three times and loosely entwining their fingers in a gesture reminiscent of when they would have been made to hold hands with siblings before they could cross the road near school, despite the only traffic liable to be out being the Knight Bus and maybe a handful of wandering winged pigs that had lost the will to fly, having to walk home instead. "C'mon, Weasley, if it was that good you've gotta rave a bit." 

"He's not at breakfast if that's what's troubling you," Ginny responded briefly as they entered the hall on the precise angle that could only have brought them there had they both been in the dungeons immediately prior to breakfast. Realisation of that fact hit her a split-second later as she glanced about and saw the back of her brother's head where he sat at the Gryffindor table, saw Neville's eyes meet hers, and she continued after Emeryth to the Slytherin table, where Em, and to a lesser extent she, received a number of curious or dirty looks of the had the wearer asking for photos just two minutes after they found out. "...lie for me?" she asked in a hushed undertone moments later, uncertain just what Emeryth would be lying about, uncertain what _she_ would be lying about other than to conceal her abrupt appearance amongst the snakes, but Hermione had just looked in her direction, which meant Ron was going to look any minute, which sunk her prospects of slinking away down to mine-shaft level. She could almost_ feel_ his prickly concern, his worry, and it annoyed her. 

.

"Did Ginny come down early?" Ron frowned, turning to Hermione. "Y'were in the common room half an hour before I came down, did you see her?" 

Hermione shook her head, indicating the negative. "She wasn't there when I arrived." Glancing around the table, her eyes lit on Sulven MacCready after a moment's search. "Sulven! Ginny--what time did she get up? Or is her lazy bum still in bed?" 

Sulven, a blonde fifth-year with grey-green eyes and a perpetually startled smile, looked up from her cereal to answer chirpily, "Nope. She was gone when we got up at seven, didn't see her at all. Bed was slept in, though." 

Hermione thanked her and turned back to Ron. "No idea where she could be. Maybe just early flying?" 

"Maybe." Ron spooned up more cereal and crunched noisily for a minute. "I don't like it. I'm worried..." 

"D'you think she's in trouble?" 

"I dunno. I just have a feeling. Not trouble, but--something's up." 

"She's been a bit odd for the last month or two, Ron. It's all of a sudden now that she's_ really_ got problems?" Harry leaned over the table from where he sat beside a concerned-looking Neville. "Don't worry, she's probably in the library again like a little Hermione, you know how her marks've gone up with the way almost every professor here's been asking you why can't you be more like your sister and_ apply yourself_." 

"Ah, shut up," Ron threatened his friend with a croissant unenthusiastically before ripping half of it off in one bite. 

"We can go and check when we've done eating if you want," Harry suggested nonchalantly, taking another piece of toast and slathering jam on it. 

Ron nodded, patting Hermione's hand under the table consolingly to soothe her rude muttering at the comparison. "Sounds good to me." 

Only a few minutes had passed when Neville assumed the most curious expression. Hermione was looking up to ask Harry if he would pass the marmalade, turned to see what made Neville go so blank, and followed his line of sight. Ginny was entering the hall, robes of black with dark green velvet trim that were definitely not her own adorning her instead of her usual weekend attire of Muggle jeans and a sweater, one hand clasping that of the younger Zabini girl. "Ginny's here," she managed to say after a moment, Ron looking around just in time to spot his sister on the far side of the Slytherin table, where she was responding to comments with two-fingered salutes, naughty words, and the occasional smirk. 

Malfoy nodded at his sister with a look that their mum would've poked his eyes out for, but Ginny waved a hand for him to take it away, and at another comment, this time from Parkinson, tucked an arm around the little Zabini girl's waist to pull her close and make what was definitely a rude remark to Pansy Pug-Face. Pansy took no offence, shrugging with a little smile of her own and jerking a thumb towards Malfoy, casually sitting on his lap with one eyebrow raised inquisitively. 

That was enough, he was getting up, going over and-- 

Hermione's hand was on his knee, gentle pressure enough to keep him sitting unless he'd prefer to risk hurting her in an attempt to get over to Ginny. "She'll be here in a minute, interrogate quietly. House pride, Ron." 

Ginny didn't _look_ as if she was in any trouble other than that of consorting with Slytherins, but Hermione was wrong about her being there in a minute. Draco had waved a hand at the table, inviting Ginny to sit with them, only one sly glance over letting him know that Draco was well aware he watched, and Ginny had shaken her head. Gazed over aimlessly, her eyes seeing right through them without the faintest flicker of recognition, turned back to Zabini and whispered something. 

The Slytherin nodded, taking a seat and flinging out her hand in a grand gesture for Ginny to catch and bow low over, exactly what she did then obscured from Ron's vision by her hair and the human mountain range of Crabbe and Goyle sitting in his line of sight, straightening and tousling Zabini's shorter hair with a laugh before she walked swiftly, self-consciously, out of the hall again towards the stairs. 

He rose quickly, brushing Hermione's hand off gently and heading after when he was cut off, delayed the moment it took for Ginny to disappear by Zabini's older sister marching across from the Ravenclaw table to Slytherin's, intercepting him and the both of them doing the 'I'll go this way--oh, you'll go this way--no, I will--stop moving!' dance before Blaise snarled something and pushed past, reaching her sister and dragging her up by the scruff of her robes. 

"I don't even want to _know_ what you were doing with Weasley that Pans would catch you snogging in the corridors, but you're coming with me now and we're washing that filthy mouth out with wound-cleaning potion," the elder Zabini's voice carried far enough for all who had heard the rumours--everyone as far as Ravenclaw, the next table by Slytherin--to hear as she towed her sister toward the main doors and outside. 

"Viridian's Vicious?" Emeryth could be heard to ask by those students at the far ends of the tables. 

"You think you're getting vodka after _that?_ Dream on." 

Casting an evil look over the entirety of House Slytherin with another glare in the direction the Zabini siblings had departed for, Ron navigated his way through a quartet of Hufflepuffs and sprinted up the stairs after his own wayward sister. 

Twenty minutes later he remained completely unable to set eyes on her, the Gryffindor common room empty of all but cats and the singed and sooty pair of first-years Timothy Spinnet and Charlotte Johnson playing Exploding Snap who had claimed to see Ginny enter a little earlier, but that she might have left again while they were engrossed in playing. Charlotte had gone into the girls' dormitories to check if Ginny were there, reporting back that there was no such beast inhabiting the dorms, and he had left at a reasonably fast pace, closing the portrait firmly behind him and stopping to think as a breeze rippled past him. 

Zabini, she'd know. She was too friendly with his sister, especially in light of what had gone whispered around the hall that day, had been far too friendly ever since Ginny's second year, and Ginny--shy, lonely, not part of any small group of her own peers in Gryffindor, a little afraid after her experiences of her first year--she hadn't possessed the sense to tell the Slytherin where to get off. He hadn't paid as much attention to his sister as he could have; Percy was still there to be Brother Know It All, Ron was just the youngest brother, he and Hermione had been caught up in the worry about Harry's now-cleared godfather coming back to finish Harry off, and now he regretted not paying enough attention to Ginny so as to be able to veto her choice of friends. She'd always been close to him, always listened to him. 

Zabini had been dragged outside, he remembered as he reached ground floor, pushing his way out through the doors and seeing Zabini the elder coming up the snow-covered stairs from around the castle on his right side. She passed him without comment, shaking her head and muttering imprecations that he didn't want to hear well enough to understand, and he carried on in the direction she had come from. A heavy scent of noxious smoke reached him before he got to a tangle of briars, narrowly avoiding the malicious swipes of all but one spray of thorns and green leaves, he let out a triumphant "Ah-ha!" at the sight of his secondary quarry sitting peacefully on a stone bench, no signs of the chillier winter weather in evidence as Emeryth sat smoking whatever was giving off the scent that made him feel almost queasy, a pint-bottle of green glass uncapped and half-empty beside her. 

"Ah-ha, Weasel?" Emeryth prompted, exhaling a cloud of white smoke with a curious gleam in her eyes. 

"You. What have you done with my sister?" 

"Would've thought it was perfectly obvious." Taking a swig from the bottle and giving him a bitterly cheerful smile, the Slytherin tilted her head and answered his question, "Your sister and I have a torrid, kinky sexual relationship which we consummated last night. And this morning. Over and over again." 

Ron could feel his cheeks burning as he searched for words, something that didn't sound quite so insipid or laughable as 'Leave my sister alone, you snaky whore!', settling for a string of dire imprecations that would have had his mother washing _his_ mouth out with wound-cleaning potion, the real stuff, along with words to the effect of Zabini being a lying bitch. 

"Fuck, but you Gryffindors are gullible." The redhead girl shook her head, assuming a look of innocence. "We were working on the Commoneo potion assignment...memory, you know? It's somewhat volatile before the Murtlap slime goes in, it exploded over us, your sister needed something to wear that wasn't going to turn her purple and make her hallucinate, so she borrowed some of my clothes 'til she could change. She's probably in the library now going over where we screwed up." 

Ron nodded and turned on his heel to walk away. 

"And I swear, we only kissed the once or twice!" Emeryth called after him, laughing quietly at how swiftly his spine straightened and he twitched, fighting the urge to respond before he left. "Pissant." 

At least she had some self-control. 

.

It had taken Ginny only a few minutes to run upstairs to the dormitory aided by the energising effects of the healing potion once the nausea had been pushed aside, the moving staircases not buggerising about and moving the wrong way while she was in flight. Entering the common room, she breezed past Timothy and Charlotte engrossed in Exploding Snap, taking the stairs to the sixth-year boys' dormitory two and three at a time, brushing the door open and entering without worry of being caught by the occupants. Dean and Seamus had been talking with Dean's sister further down the Gryffindor table, Ron, Harry and Neville had all been sitting together, and despite Ron's look she when she had been conversing with Slytherins, she thought she had at _least_ five minutes to find what she came for. 

"If I were an invisibility cloak, where would I be?" she thought aloud before answering herself sarcastically, "Invisible, you fool." 

The first logical place to look was in Harry's trunk, so she bypassed that in favour of the wardrobe. It was _so_ obviously the place to keep a cloak irregardless of the type that almost anyone looking would skip it. The only problem she found, as she started fumbling around the clothes hanging up, was that it was indeed invisible. If _she_ had an invisibility cloak, she'd pin a little note on it along the lines of 'here, moron!' for when it wasn't in use, and stash it properly. Under the stone floor wasn't a possibility, it could only be in the room unless Harry was carrying it with him, and it hadn't looked like it at breakfast, the cloak always made rather an obtrusive bulge no matter where one stuffed it. 

After another moment of flailing into the emptiness, her fingers brushed over something that felt like velvet, and she caught it after two attempts, carefully pulling it free from the unobtrusive nail it was hung from at the top of the wardrobe. Swirling it around to catch a glimpse of the dusty-hued lining and tug it on, pulling the hood up to obscure her face and shaking out the folds until it swept to the ground, covering her completely, she then closed the wardrobe doors and glanced around the room. Tom needed clothes, and she'd have to steal some from either Ron or Dean, the only two sufficiently tall that their trousers would be long enough. Dean or Ron, Dean or Ron... Ron's taste was haphazard at best. Dean had nice clothes, his mother bought them instead of letting him have free choice in the matter, his height advantage of an inch on Ron would work out better for Tom. And he probably wouldn't miss anything for a day or so-- 

Dean's bed would be... West Ham. The unmoving West Ham football poster between one of the identical four-poster beds and wardrobes was as good an indicator as the flashing neon light-spells used around accidents and murder-scenes, and she crossed to his wardrobe in two easy steps, opening a drawer and swiping a white shirt, grey trousers and, one quick check as to the cleanliness of Dean's underpants later, a pair of those as well. 

That taken care of and the bundle of clothes tucked under an arm beneath the invisibility cloak, she returned downstairs to the common room, making her way up to the girls' dormitories with Spinnet and Johnson still oblivious and finding clothes of her own to wear so she could return Emeryth's. Em was a good friend, she decided to herself as she found her own underthings and a shirt, followed by jeans, shoes and socks. She'd been thoughtful enough to clothe her, heal her, and not deny the rumours that were spreading further and further around the castle as the seconds ticked by; being thought of as the crazy Gryffindor dyke out after Slytherins was far preferable for the moment to being known as the girl that brought Tom Riddle back, even if most of the students hadn't a _clue_ about the anagram his name could be made into. Gossip would spread nonetheless, the teachers would find out, and they'd be screwed. They'd rather keep the screwing between themselves for the time being. 

Charlotte pushed open the door just as she was about to pull it open herself, making her draw back quickly and dart past the first-year, waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Charlotte to wander back down after verifying her absence, slipping through the door before it could close. Ron's face greeted her with unseeing eyes, completely oblivious to her presence as she'd had the mind to pull the cloak's hood over her face completely, reducing her vision somewhat but rendering her completely invisible, and flitting out past him through the portal when he left with a little rush of danger racing through her as she came a hair's breadth to touching him. Idiot brother, trying to find her; if she didn't want to be found, he'd never clap eyes on her again! She mentally thanked Emeryth for soft-soled slippers--real shoes and she would have had to go slower to remain quiet, as it was now she only had the one stop left, through the corridor to the fruit-painting, taking off the cloak and hiding the clothes under it in a small bundle against the wall where she could find it again, tickling the pear to enter the kitchens and be greeted by a flurry of house-elves. They were all too pleased to load a basket of breakfast and lunch food and drinks, and wave her on her way, Winky promising not to tell anyone a word of her brief visit and the other house elves sans an absent Dobby agreeing. 

From there she pulled the cloak on again, slipping the basket over one arm and dropping the clothes atop the food, taking exactly ten steps before she stopped short, Ron having found her _somehow_, Ron actually _seeing_ her because she hadn't finished dragging the hood down the whole way. 

"_Ginny! _What's going on? You--that Slytherin--you pinched Harry's cloak--" Ron stammered, taken aback by the clues in her behaviour that had started clicking into place within his mind. 

His words had an oddly numbing effect on her, letting her hand slip down and pull the hood with it so her face was completely visible, her thoughts drawing back in a flash of panic before something spiked within her mind, a surge of power newly awakened in the early hours of that morning, the memory that she could work magic by birthright, she had the words and the will. Raising a hand slowly to wave in front of him with the soft incantation of "_Alieno meus praesentia,_" words she hadn't truly known until that point, had come unbidden to her tongue from something older than she, and her blood had danced at the realisation that Ron's eyes were glazing over, giving him a terribly confused expression. It _worked_. 

"I'm fine. We talked before. You're happy if I'm happy, you're hungry and you're going to raid the kitchens," Ginny suggested cheerfully, nodding in farewell as Ron headed straight for the fruit portrait, leaving her free to pull the hood back up and run a hand over the cool, smooth scales of the snake that curled around her neck. "I think we're all set now, don't you? We'll drop Emeryth's clothes off in her room and go back to Tom." 

A tiny tongue flickered out again, touching her collarbone with an electric thrill as it answered, and she understood. "Yesssss."

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

**Walking Higher 8**  
by Faith Accompli

Disclaimer; Ginny, Rowling's. Tom, Rowling's. Everything from the books, Rowling's. Other stuff, mine. Finally getting around to posting again because of the nagging witch that is Fidelis Haven. ;p

* * *

Tom was engrossed in a thick gilt-edged tome when she returned, sitting cross-legged on the rack, clad in dark grey-black trousers that were probably the only remains of her robes turned duvet if what she judged by the lack of duvet and abundance of trousers was anything to go by. He rose as soon as she reached the fourth-to-last stair, obviously having been listening for her return, putting the book down, crossing the dungeon to reach her and taking the basket she shoved at him without comment before she sat rather abruptly on the last step. 

"Parselmouth now."

"Yes."

Biting her lip thoughtfully as she uncoiled the snake which had accepted the name of Nidhogg after admitting to not having one and allowed her to choose, setting him down gently on the edge of the cloak, she opened her mouth to speak before shutting it again and thinking of what she should say. "Mind if I take a minute?"

"Be my guest." Tom answered her quietly, setting the basket down and sitting before her, resting back on one hand to watch her lazily.

It was such a gradual process that had led her to this place and time--oh, the catalyst had been in her first year at Hogwarts, when she had been exposed to _the greatest evil the Wizarding World had ever faced_ at the tender age of eleven, but after Harry had hurt...and killed, almost killed Tom, his influence had remained with her, simmering, brewing. It had spiralled deep, until the little voice that had been his in the back of her mind became her own. Maybe it was her own, after all, but it had goaded her on, coached her towards becoming sneakier, stealthier, more at home in her own skin than she had been all her life. It hadn't won her friends amongst those that should have been her closest confidantes, but she'd felt...something.

Last night--last night, she had felt _alive_. It had been the crowning moment, as if she had been thrust into the fire at the heart of the world that Muggles could never reach, as though she had been burned clean, shedding any residual fear and worry that she had kept. Her magic had grown stronger, older in the flame, and while she didn't have the desperate need or knowledge that morning that would have provided her with clothes, there had been a viable alternative. Deep magic, on the other hand--reaching out and shaping the forces with a word, a gesture, a thought... Before last night she would have second-guessed herself, would now be working herself into believing that nothing meant what she had thought it did unless her inner voice told her so, that she had deluded herself...but it was all so clear.

Before last night, she would never have seriously considered tampering with her brother's mind, although the thought would have occurred to her before she started crying, confusing him, forcing him into the role of comforter instead of accuser. This way, the new way, was clean, cold and elegant. She was a Parselmouth now, and it seemed to her that the ability to speak the tongue of serpents wasn't without its own swaying grace. There was something beautifully clear to it, and she hadn't stolen it as Harry had when he took of the older Voldemort's powers after his downfall. Tom had given it to her, he must have, he didn't seem in the slightest displeased with her newfound talent. He had been pleased, and the way that he had looked at her...

The way he spoke it, so softly that it caressed her mind, he could make her melt with a single hiss. She would kill for him, die for him, and gods show mercy on those that stepped between them now, be it accidental or deliberate. Much as she loved her family, as strong as their bond was after so long, and in such cramped quarters, even if they were to get in the way, and oh; if they knew, they would, even they would have to fall.

Tom, cruel--calculating--fiercely intelligent and devastatingly handsome, was her greatest strength and her one real vulnerability. With him, she was approaching confident that she could have ruled the world with what she knew deep inside now, when she sunk back deep enough to let the world's knowledge roll over her, beyond the rigid structures and rules humanity tried to force on witchcraft.

Without him, she would never have become herself. There was no place for what-ifs, for 'if I had...'s, there was only the here and the now, and the I am.

She loved him, which wasn't nearly as shocking a thought as she would have supposed. She had loved him ever since she knew him, even when she had known the feeling wasn't returned. Now... now she thought he could feel the same way, given time. And sex. Lots of sex, a thought snaked up from the back of her mind, pure innocence in tone until she slapped it away. Repressing the thought, of course, had nothing to do with how much she liked that plan.

Tom moved as she emerged from her thoughts, rising into a graceful crouch and offering her a hand. She took it instantly, letting him pull her up, pull her into his arms with a delicate spin of footwork on her part that ended with her tucked back against him, thin invisibility cloak and transfigured-robe trousers the only things truly between skin contact for them, her head resting lightly on his shoulder. He held her close for a long moment, inhaling the scent of her hair, tracing over the fading pink marks he had left on her neck with his lips until he felt both her longings and his stir once more. At that moment he drew back, collecting the basket she had carried down and trying to distract himself with the remarkably effective scent of real food, offering her his free arm. "Would the lady care to accompany me further into the serpent's lair?"

Placing one hand lightly on his wrist, she gave him what could only be a decidedly odd smile and let sarcasm drip into her tone like venom, matching his own and voicing "But of course, m'lord," before it faded and she questioned, "...further in?"

"You didn't think this dungeon was the extent of it? Salazar's private chambers lie beyond the door."

"Would any one of those perhaps contain a bed that you forgot to mention this morning, by some odd chance?"

"Perhaps."

-

"Ron! Where've you _been?_ I was reduced to asking Malfoy about Ginny's whereabouts while you were gone, and he just laughed at me!"

Ron started guiltily as Hermione arrived, having crept up quietly behind him while he stuffed himself on éclairs and cupcakes that the house-elves had been all too glad to give him. He should probably have told her that he'd found Ginny, instead of sitting down to eat, but it had somehow seemed unimportant. Everything had seemed unimportant. Ginny had told him that she was just studying more now with exams looming in a mere six months, and she'd told him not to worry.

"Is Ginny okay? Did you find her?"

"Mhrmmmshfnnn." Swallowing quickly to try again with enunciation so Hermione would be able to pick out more than half a word, Ron nodded and said, "She's fine, we talked. She's probably back in the library now, studying lots for exams 'cos she wants to get better O.W.L.s than Fred, George 'n me got."

Giving him a twisted little smile, Hermione opined "She's only got to show up and spell her name right to do better than the three of you put together."

"Oi! I'm smart."

"Yes, Ron, you're a genius, but Snape's still going to flunk you in the N.E.W.T.s if you don't pull your socks up."

"If I don't pull my socks up?" Ron sounded highly indignant as they sat on an old damask sofa that had popped into view when they'd walked around the corner. "What are you, my mum!"

"No more snogging in the girls' bathroom if I am." Hermione looked smug, idly flicking a speck of nonexistent dust from her skirt.

"I'm sorry. I'll be good." Assuming as innocent a look as could be managed, he sat back the very picture of propriety, stretching and casually draping an arm around her shoulders. "Snog?"

"You--argh! You need a good spanking, Ron Weasley!"

"Promise?"

"No! What was Ginny doing with that treacherous little snake earlier? She came out of the dungeons wearing Zabini's clothes and didn't even talk to us, it's just _not right_." A slightly worried frown took over Hermione's face.

"Nah, s'all right. They were doing Potions homework an' it exploded, the both of 'em had to change. Hey, you wanna come outside for a quick fly?"

"Ginny's newfound dedication to her work aside, you don't find it the least bit odd that your sister would be awake at six in the morning to do _homework? _She and Zabini were holding hands when they got into breakfast, something's going on." Smacking his hand away from her shoulder, wondering thoughtfully about just how much he wanted to deviate from the subject of Ginny in direct contrast to his mood earlier, she added, "And stop trying to change the subject."

"If Ginny's happy, I'm happy." His eyes were verging on glazed over, and Hermione was struck with a thread of genuine worry. It could just be Ron zoning out after he'd lost interest in a subject, but it was too sudden, too abrupt a change after he'd felt so strongly about it.

"But you had a feeling something was wrong!"

"Ah, probably crossed signals. I'll find out Percy stubbed his toe or something, and feel like a right prat for chasing Ginny down over it." Ron shook his head dismissively. "Think we've got time for a chess match before lunch?"

"With how swiftly I lose? Yes. And after, we're going to see Professor McGonagall." She'd let him drag her away from the topic this one more time, but she was going to take him to their head of house--maybe Ginny had tried a befuddlement charm on him to make him leave her and the Slytherin alone, or... or she knew not what. But Professor McGonagall would be able to find out, and it was... probably nothing. Certainly nothing as wrong as Lockhart's attempt to wipe Ron's memory in the Chamber, but then Lockhart had been hoist with his own petard, saying something for the effectiveness of karma. Ginny would never have done something that idiotic and callous, and whatever she had done, McGonagall would be able to undo with a flick of her wand.

-

"You came back." Tom pointed out, taking a final bite of apple from where he sat against the headboard, tossing the core into the air and watching it burst into flame, turn to ash and blow away. They had worked through half the food between them, until she had flagged a good fifteen minutes before, leaning back against the endboard herself with her knees drawn up to her chest, watching him at least as intensely as he watched her.

Flopping gracefully across the bed towards him, gazing up with her chin resting on interlaced fingers unheedful of the cloak slipping down to bare her back in favour of answering, she toyed with the idea of a flippant answer before saying, "Really, did you entertain the notion for even a _second_ that I'd not return to you?"

"Seriously?" he reached out to brush a hand through her hair, sliding down to lie beside her, propping himself up on one elbow. "No. I did begin to almost wonder, though."

"Pfft," Ginny made a dismissive sound, then shifted closer with a little moan as he continued stroking her back, his nails digging lightly into exposed and tender skin. "I would say that you'd...mmm...have to kill me to be rid of me, but I worry you'd take me at my word."

"I would never kill you unless you wanted it."

Something in his lifeless tone made her meet his eyes again, seeing a dark chill in them, and instinct made her slide onto her back, half under him, raising a hand to his cheek for her fingertips to trail over fine cheekbones that were almost a crime for him to have when so many girls weren't that lucky. "I've no desire to walk down that path again."

"Again?"

"After you were taken away before." Her words were short, a trace of bleakness entering her voice. "I felt--empty. Even though I loved you and hated you when you were with me, when you were gone...I thought of hanging myself. Slicing my wrists. Digging into a main artery and leaving my corpse for someone else to find."

Tom deliberated for the barest moment before tracing a hand along her neck, over a well-defined collarbone, thinking of how he would never have returned, never had _her_ if she had given in to those dark desires. "That wasn't terribly intelligent."

"I was an idiot. What was your excuse?"

"My excuse?"

"You know what it's like to want death. I _know, _Tom."

"The first eleven years of my life. Every summer until I went into the diary. I never tried it--even then I knew that there was some purpose to going on, to make others feel my pain." He saw her eyes widen, her lips part to speak, and pulled her to him almost roughly. "I don't want to talk about it," he hissed, lapsing into Parseltongue before he claimed her mouth harshly, an edge of almost-surprise rising at her fierce response. She tugged him down into the pillows, her arms encircling his neck, one foot snaking around his back to slide her toes under the waistband of his trousers, pressing him closer, taking away the phantom pain in his mind as she stole his breath, releasing him the moment he thought he could die happily in her arms.

"...so," she whispered aloud when she found again the ability to form semi-coherent words, pressing a hand to his chest to feel his heart beat. "What plans have you now? Now that you live again?"

Her less than graceful segue into a completely different area of conversation wasn't uncalled-for. He had pushed her, and she had pushed back, both blows hitting below the belt on either side. That, he could respect, and he would question her no longer along that line. Her loyalty felt absolute, and she would not deny him lightly. The subtle shifting she did beneath him was testimony to how little she would attempt to deny, and the thoughts that sprung full-formed into his mind were a soaring aria in contrast to the dirge that had been their earlier snippet of conversation. "I want power, not with my elder self or in an alliance with another dark wizard. I want it to be mine alone," he murmured, seeing the fire in his eyes reflected in Ginny's dark gaze, an icy blaze that, with her involvement, could engulf the world. "I know, I can see that all I have to do is reach out my hand and grasp it. I want that power, and I want you."

Every word he uttered, he meant. She was the only meaningful contact he'd had with another being since becoming the diary, she had opened up to him, displaying her vulnerability to him alone, and like the serpent beneath the flower she had struck, her fangs biting deep into his mind and soul, a slow-acting venom that had opened him in turn to her, worked through him to change him in subtle ways that he was learning the extent of still. While he had been away from her, his little Ginny had grown claws to match her hidden fangs, and when he had thought he was playing her like a fine harp she had whipped around to catch him, ensnaring him, bewitching him. He could try to justify it as being the intense attachment that could form when they were all each other had, but he wanted to possess her, wanted her to be as enraptured as he knew he was.

Ginny held her hand out to him, palm upmost. A silvered scar darted in place of her heart-line, where she had bled for him during the past witching hour, to bring him fully into her world. He touched the scar, taking her hand to run his thumb over the line, breathing in swiftly at the full implication. Every cut she had given herself had been careful and deliberate, not a single wasted movement, always through her life line. Every time but the last.

That was a binding, potent old magic that he wouldn't have thought she could know, a magic that only the vaguest references to were available in the restricted section of the library, magic as old as the dawn of wizardry, and the very thought of it burned feverishly through the back of his brain, driving him to pull her into his arms again, to prompt her acknowledgement of the delicate and sensual madness that swirled about them like a whirlwind, to make her say the words he wanted to hear so he could bind them to memory, "I do have you, don't I?"

"You've had me since you wrote the first word years back. You've claimed me thrice over this very morning, and I wouldn't mind terribly if you did it again." Ginny wriggled just a fraction to make sure there could be no misinterpreting her words, nipping at his neck before she fell back again, fiery curls and smouldering eyes evidencing the depths of her desire. "So... always. I will not walk away."

Later, he would settle on his first definite move for power. Later, he would consider the curious echo in her words that rang of a promise not to be broken on pain of death. Later, he would wonder that someone who could burn so brightly under the surface, who had loyalty and bravery in abundance--she _had_ to, to bring him back--could enjoy every moment he spent corrupting her and would willingly tumble from the exalted grace of Gryffindor to land on both feet in the lair of the serpent and welcome him.

Now, Ginny took his kiss of acceptance to lead further, which he had no objection to, feverishly working on removing his pants and groaning in pleasure when he ran fingertips over the sensitised skin and silver scar tissue snakes that he had marked her with from thigh to hip, a soft yelp issuing from her lips when he rolled her atop him, her blunt Quidditch-player nails digging deep into his shoulders the second she fought for balance before realising she didn't need to, and a low moan rising in her throat as she led him in the first steps of their pas de deux.

Thought would always come later, but for now he was entering Elysium.

-

"Selene. What drags you away from your bed at the early hour of... eleven?" Snape raised an eyebrow to peer at her all the more ominously, pouring tea into a thick mug painted with moving stars and sliding it along the bench towards the bleary-eyed professor that had just stumbled into the staff room.

"Didn't make it." Sinistra mumbled, taking a gulp of tea and making a face as Snape squeezed lemon into his own, commandeering the sugar bowl and milk jug to pour a healthy serving of each into her cup. "Watched stars until dawn, read a book, tried to go to bed and somehow bounced down five flights of stairs instead. Decided to carry on down. Commandeering the sofa until I have the energy to crawl back up."

"Have I ever mentioned that your behaviour at times borders on absurdity?"

"Frequently."

"Care for some arsenic to go in your tea?"

Straightening with mock dignity, Sinistra kept her eyes open long enough to glare briefly at her long-time colleague, friend of her departed brother, and sole other teacher with the distinction of being sorted into Slytherin. "I think not." After a few moments longer and another hearty swig of tea, she refocused on him to ask, "Since you're not leaving...what's been happening down in the snake pit?"

"One of our fourth-years is three months pregnant, and Vincent's received several after-hours howlers from his mother on the subject. Pansy claimed she was attempting extra credit work, I had to fix her Contragravida potion before she turned it into Ingravesco. Emeryth appeared with fractured knuckles and a patently false explanation this morning," Severus paused thoughtfully, almost smirking at the scandalised but thoroughly interested expression on Sinistra's face, and nodded. "Oh, yes. I think something's alive in the dungeons."

"You've been mixing random ingredients and inhaling again, haven't you?"

"Potions is a subtle science, an exact art. It requires precision and delicacy...so, no. Not since last Tuesday." Frowning, sitting on the arm of the sofa that didn't even consider moving under his weight, Snape glanced around the staffroom to ensure that no one had sneaked in (particularly not Minerva in her feline form who was always more difficult to spot then than as a human) before he added, "It... almost has the same air to it as when the Chamber was opened."

"...you're shitting me." Sinistra sat up straighter and took a last sip of her tea before setting the cup down on the floor and looking to Snape thoughtfully. "Famous Harry Potter dealt to the Heir a couple of years ago, I thought."

"Mmm." Snape's tone was thoroughly dismissive. "He never can finish a job, I'll note, it's not completely unlikely that something in the same vein could have risen again--there are many things in this castle that remain hidden until the right person comes along, _especially_ in the dungeons."

"Our illustrious founder wasn't the cunning one to no end. If he were so straightforward as the badger and the lion, you would never have found a way into Ravenclaw's tower through the wall in the dormitory hallway." Resettling herself more comfortably on her side, Sinistra stretched luxuriously and asked, "Like Riddle came back, you say?"

"Pure conjecture at this point, I really have nothing else to compare it with. Alternatively, we could have another basilisk hiding down below."

"Bugger that."

"You're most likely the safest of all in this castle if we were revisited, you do realise? Pureblood, Slytherin, and at the top of a bloody great tower to boot."

"I think I'll have the house-elves bring all my meals up from now on anyway. Sod the staff meetings, I've nothing to add that Vector can't do in my place." For all her new resolve, Selene curled over and closed her eyes when Severus got up to drop his cup in the sink for the house-elves to deal to, and resigned herself to another day of less than brilliant catnaps in place of real sleep. She should have gone to bed when the sun started rising...

"Sleep well, Selene."

-

"I had a thought..."

"Did it pain you?"

"Hush." Tom bit her lightly on the ear, holding back a grin at her shudder of delight before he continued, "What did you say to return? To the wall to make it open?"

"...I didn't..." The blush that had been fading from their previous exertions returned to her in full force. "Nidhogg opened it for me."

"And what did the little snake say?"

Covering her eyes and peeking out between her fingers, an uncertain edge to her voice as she quoted verbatim the exact words of her guide, Ginny tucked her face into his shoulder and muffled everything from the second word onwards, "The mate of Salazar's Heir requires entrance."

"Interesting." It was, very. There should have been trouble for anyone opening the wall that was not of Slytherin's blood, even though it let in any adder in the vicinity that demanded shelter through a smaller door, one stone only sliding back to allow only them in. That it would respond to a demand for someone connected to him, even that intimately, was insightful--and the snake's words had to be the truth. "You'd have no problems returning here in my absence, then?"

"No... Will you stay for a little longer at least, before you go?" Ginny inquired softly after seeing that he was pleased rather than annoyed, rearranging to sprawl one leg over Tom as she curled closer, one hand raised to toy idly with his hair as she awaited his answer.

"I'm not leaving tonight, Virginia." A smile quirked at the corners of his mouth before he continued, "Tomorrow night. We'll sneak out under the cloak, and I'll Apparate after getting past the wards on the school. You'll return and wait like the angelic little child that you're not, and display nothing but profound innocence should anyone inquire anything of you."

"I'm sure I can manage that, despite the entirety of the student body here believing me to be engaged in illicit liaisons with Emeryth, but really that should have no impact whatsoever on the believability of my lies."

A thoughtful and somewhat naughty expression appeared on Tom's face momentarily, disappearing before Ginny could call him on it, and he ran a hand over her shoulder, resting it there lightly as he debated his wording. "Oh, no. Work with it. If they believe you're with her, they're certainly not going to dig any deeper for further immoral relations with Slytherins, although I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you were called into Dumbledore's office to explain yourself...no, McGonagall's, she's head of Gryffindor now. And a wonderful picture _that _paints, truly."

"You'd better not have dirty stories to divulge about her. That's just...that's a disgusting thought."

"She wasn't unattractive in her schooldays."

"But she's _old _now. She's a teacher. Ew."

Tom laughed at the look of absolute nausea on Ginny's face at that comment, pointing out cheerfully, "I was born only a year or two after she was."

"Completely different," she assured him, sneaking a kiss while he tried to see the logic behind her reasoning. "You're sexy, so even if you looked your age you would still be able to lure me into bed with a word. Provided you didn't look like a deformed snake man with glowing red eyes, which although _interesting_, would be really unnerving, and I like your voice just the way it is."

General confusion overtook him, and he shook his head to clear it, favouring her with a mildly irritated look. "Virginia, you're strange."

"Tremendous. You probably don't want to take a look at your old self, by the way." Drawing back to the previous topic, she asked "You nick off with the invisibility cloak, I'm supposing, and you do...what?"

"Seek information on exactly what the status quo is. Find my enemies' weaknesses and think of how to exploit them, both my elder's and those of the Ministry and Dumbledore. Get a wand again--there's really no safe way for you to steal Potter's for me, although it would be almost as good as mine. Yours I can use, but it does try to fight me. Probably inadvisable for you to claim yours went missing, so a trip to Ollivander's in disguise will be an unavoidable necessity."

"I have twenty-five Galleons. Unless Salazar was thoughtful enough to leave a pot of gold behind for his heir's financial emergencies, you'll probably be best off taking them," Ginny offered, her experience being raised giving her some sense when it came to money and where it would be needed.

"I'd thought to steal a wand, but discretion can, on rare occasions, be the better part of valour. Or something like it. I'll recompense you for your birthday money after we take over the world."

Ginny laughed at his strange version of honourable, shaking her head slightly. "Don't worry about it. It's for the spending. And after you've spied out the lay of the land?"

"Then, my lady, I return for you."


	9. Chapter 9

**Walking Higher 9**  
by Faith Accompli

Disclaimer, etc; Canon characters belong to Rowling. Anything else is probably mine. Plot (what plot?) also mine. Thank you to those lovely souls that reviewed me, and ... er, don't worry, it's not actually finished yet, there's another ten or so chapters and a sequel to go. :)

* * *

"Em--" Reaching out, grabbing her friend by the wrist and flicking out the cloak to envelop the younger girl too, Ginny stifled a laugh at Emeryth's look of shock and rapid attempt to cover it with disapproval. Emeryth recovered rapidly and slipped a hand around Ginny's waist to make sure neither of them should fall or get separated to be on display to the other Slytherins filing in and out of the common room, following Ginny's guidance to the wall where they would be well out of the traffic. 

"The hell are you still doing here, Gin? And--is this Potter's invisibility cloak?"

"Mad, rampant sex, and yeah. Best-kept secret in Hogwarts, the cloak."

Emeryth snorted softly under the cover-noise of Draco and the rest of the Quidditch team clattering in well after she had, and nodded. "Not quite discreet, he wasn't. Look, the old bat of Gryffindor's after you. I reckon Granger ratted you out on something, because the bat looked a lot more disturbed than when Boot and my sister hooked up. Snape hasn't warned me that she was out for my blood like he did with Blaise, and Granger was hovering around the bat's shoulder. I ran before she could actually catch up, though, so I've no idea what you've done to deserve it."

"What? Those stupid little...Argh. Damn Ron--can't deal with it now, things to do. I need you t'come with me while I grab something from my dorm, and get me back in here." She knew all too well that she could return on her own with Nidhogg hidden as he was in her shirt to operate the Slytherin doors, but company was good, as was finding out exactly what had happened in her absence from school society.

"No problem. You ever going to let me know who you're doing?" Emeryth glanced around and nodded to the door as Draco, Pansy and Blaise left for lunch. "Now." Stealthily and swiftly they made it out just before the door closed, biting back giggles when Ginny stumbled and almost tripped before catching her footing. "You just had all that athlete's grace fucked out of you, didn't you?"

"You'll find out. Maybe tonight. Never had the grace, it's not that hard to catch a ball."

"Tell it to Creevey." With that they lapsed into silence, sneaking furtively through the entrance hall and upstairs, avoiding trick steps, other students, and McGonagall and Hermione talking on the fourth-floor landing, the latter bemoaning her inability to find Ginny or 'that little Zabini cow'. Reaching the Gryffindor dorm entrance just as Natalie MacDonald wandered in, snow still in her hair and on her cloak, they slipped in silently and trailed after the third-year up the dorm stairs, slipping into the fifth-year dorm where the door had been left open and no one remained inside. Crossing to Ginny's bed and hauling one end of the mattress up to withdraw a small leather pouch, Ginny nodded once and they left again, still silent as the dead.

It wasn't until they got back to the Slytherin common room that Ginny spoke once more, seeing it even more deserted than Gryffindor's, which at least had a rather soggy third-year going through to change after a snowball fight. "...oh, bugger. I've made you miss out on lunch, haven't I?"

"Wasn't going anyway. I've already skipped dinner and breakfast 'cause Granger was after me. Theo smuggled food back for me, he'll do it again."

"For all the crap we hear about Slytherins, you can be a loyal bunch." Yanking off the invisibility cloak, Ginny raised an eyebrow when it seemed Emeryth was going to answer.

"--you're with one of us, you should get it by now. We're connected, everyone owes someone something, and is owed. Some of us, it rankles a touch, but either we get over it or we get fucked over by it. This rate, it's better. In light of Lord Voldemort's rise, fall, and back on his feet again, we're not the most trusted of students." Emeryth buffed her nails on the edge of her robes, shaking her head quickly. "Snape can't be watching after us all the time, Sinistra's only around when you're smoking, and only Flitwick, Vector and Hooch are willing to cut us some slack out of the other teachers. It allows for a lot of scuffles with Gryffindor--and vastly more detentions for us. On account of, you know, us being pure evil, not like you Chivalrous and Brave Gryffindors."

"Fuck Gryffindor. Evil can be sexy." Bundling the cloak up in one arm, Ginny frowned. "Not that I want to make unreasonable demands." She batted at Emeryth's hand when the younger girl said Ginny could make all the unreasonable demands she wanted, and continued "We have to get out again tonight. Mind hanging about around--five--so we can leave unobtrusively?"

"Since I have no other plans, what the hell. I'll find out whom the second half of 'we' is then?"

"Yes. Thanks, you're a darling." Brushing a light kiss on Emeryth's lips and smacking her on the rear with instructions for the girl to get back to her dormitory, she smirked merrily at Em's parting two-fingered salute and waited until Emeryth was out of sight before retrieving Nidhogg from his comfortable and warm sleep on her chest, stroking him lightly between the eyes and telling him to work his magic.

Rolling his eyes in a manner to indicate that she was quite absurd, Nidhogg hissed that the embarrassed to be so named but enthusiastic about it mate of Salazar's heir wanted to get in now, thank you very much.

Stuffing Nidhogg back into her shirt with a sigh, Ginny started to grope and fumble her way down the stairs once the wall had closed behind her, yelping with shock when cool hands landed lightly on her waist, pulling her down to the next step. "Enthusiastic, hmmm?" that low voice hissed in her ear, and she curled one arm around his neck, answering with a playful bite to his shoulder.

"Git."

"And you're nothing of the sort." Tom lead her easily downstairs in the darkness and through the torture chamber, into Salazar's study to the desk that had remained relatively untouched--at least until he had found it in his schooldays. Taking the heavy wooden chair, still upholstered in pristine forest-green velvet, and pulling Ginny down onto his lap all the better to slide his hands under her shirt, he asked "All goes according to plan?"

"We don't have that much of a plan unless you've done some thinking while I was away," Ginny pointed out, dropping the money-bag onto the desk with a flick of her wrist, "but as it happens, all is well. Emeryth agreed to walk us out, and I believe she's being eaten alive with curiosity about the identity of my mysterious Slytherin whom I flit off to have wild and tempestuous sex with. Do you think I could perhaps tell her in your absence?"

"You find her trustworthy enough; I don't believe it could cause a hindrance to our work. Assuage the poor child's thirst for knowledge, delve into her for further information on the current state of House Slytherin."

"Delve?" Raising an eyebrow and biting her lip to keep from commenting on his phrasing, Ginny simply looked at him for further clarification.

"Use whatever means you find necessary--or pleasurable. I'd not want to deprive you during my time away." A lascivious gleam sparkled in his eyes and he avoided her direct gaze, choosing instead to look away as his hands reached higher, drawing a shiver from her that made her slide closer, not without reactions on his own part.

"Umm...you're a sick, perverted man, you really are. And when I'd be here, only female company to while away the dull hours until you return to me, you're doing what? Who d'you intend to see, to what purpose, beyond Ollivander's? Is there anyone you'd trust to help you and not sell you out to Voldemort or turn you in to the Ministry?"

"I never made much habit of trusting, you know that as well as I do. Any of my old friends are going to be either firmly entrenched in Voldemort's party or dead, so no. There is no one I intend to divulge even the hint of my return to, I'll just find likely information sources and Obliviate them when done. Perhaps lurk about Knockturn Alley a little." Indicating with a nod of his head to the papers on the desk, some thousand years old or so, with fresh writing on them and her quill beside, Tom commented lightly, "Feel quite free to examine what I've come up with so far."

"And no one's going to recognise you, by some freak chance?" Ginny asked as she reached back for them, rearranging herself more comfortably with the papers behind him and her arms over his shoulders so she could read and watch him at the same time. "Be not fooled by the treachery of witch, for what they choose to show you is not even one tenth of what they conceal. The pain they bring is better than a thousand joys, but they will burn you out and snuff you as though you were a candle. Beware always, never turn your back... Cheerful sort, Salazar was. What, he left a personal warning to you, a 'handle with care' guide?"

"Ha, ha." Digging his nails into her flesh gently, smirking at her yelp of surprise, he advised, "Try reading the other side."

"Right." Flipping the page over, resting her chin on his shoulder to peruse his writings thoroughly, she eventually pulled back to regard him. "Get Virginia to disguise me before I go. Knight Bus, using fake accent to explain why not attending Hogwarts if anyone realises my age. Wand. Hit the dark arts shops that hide under the shallow guise of charcoal-grey arts, interrogate various people and make 'em forget all about it. Pay a visit to the Magus Foruli on Nocens Way, see what's up with current events. Locate suitable castle or fortress to take as Evil Overlord headquarters. Return a week after departing, have sex with Virginia. All night." Gracing him with a sweetly innocent smile, Ginny inquired in the softest murmur just how sure he was that he could last all night, although if he were up to it, by the time of his return she certainly wouldn't be pleading headache.

"I'm quite certain." Leaning her over the desk and drawing her shirt up as far as her ribs when his hands strayed higher, standing, pressing down on her so that she could be sure he was always up to the occasion, he added, "But is it a viable plan?" before he kissed her, a thrill spiking in his mind at her ever-swift response, her hands in his hair, her legs around him, one heel digging into the small of his back and her skirt sliding over her knees to gather around her hips leaving her so very enticingly vulnerable.

"Mmmhmm," she managed before he drew back just a fraction to study her, her lips reddened, her eyes shining a fevered blue with darkness to match her attire, the dark skirt of which had been a pair of trousers until she decided that taking them on and off was far too much like work when she was otherwise engaged. "Works nicely."

-

"Must you leave tonight? It's not too late to make a slight change of plans, and you could catch the Knight Bus early in the morning instead..." Ginny questioned seriously, stretching as she shifted beside him, one leg so-casually sliding over his and one palm flat to his chest, her head resting on his arm as it curled around her shoulders.

Realistically, she knew that he wouldn't be making his exit indefinitely, he had said he would return for her and she knew he'd meant every word, but that didn't stop the slim chance that someone would recognise him if her spell failed, and alert the Ministry. Voldemort couldn't have killed everyone he knew in his schooldays, and Tom's was not a face forgotten easily--_he had been in her dreams sporadically ever since they met. Sometimes elusive, sometimes she hadn't the faintest clue what it meant, sometimes she had woken screaming, and sometimes_--but that was ridiculous. It would take a Slytherin to catch a Slytherin, and there wasn't a single Slytherin Auror currently working with the Ministry. Each and every one of them had been placed on indefinite leave after Fudge had come to terms with Voldemort's re-emergence, although the older dark lord had been suspiciously silent after his last battle with Potter, and she was fairly sure it was something to do with the Slytherins all being tarred by the same brush. The Ministry had said "We don't trust you," the Slytherins had said "Screw you," and with that they'd wiped out the best in their ranks. Loyalty and bravery just didn't cut it the same way cunning and ambition did when you were hunting evil and sneaky wizards. There had probably been less...or more rude words involved at the time, but she'd heard it second-hand when Emeryth and Blaise's mother had quit the Ministry and the girls had been explaining to a handful of first-year Slytherins just why it wouldn't be a good idea to annoy their mothers and fathers for the next month or three.

So she wasn't quite worried about anyone being able to hurt or kill him, no, but there was always that element of risk. He would be out of her sight, away from where she would be able to intercede, even if he was the more powerful and knowledgeable wizard, even if he was far more capable of taking care of himself than she was. She had the niggling feeling that the best-laid plans of mice and men often went awry, and if anything could go wrong it would, and there was so much that could do just that. That she didn't want to peel herself away from him, didn't want to have to immerse herself in the mundane world of school life again, did factor into her question, but she knew the answer before he spoke.

"Afraid I must." His hands were in her hair again, toying with strands idly, ready to catch them in an iron-hard grip if she moved too fleetingly, if he thought she would run away. She had started to recognise it as just the hint of an insecurity, the merest notion that he didn't possess her fully, and she had no desire to dissuade him of it just yet--it showed her, was her constant reminder that he valued her enough to care if she was taken away, and the thought thrilled her. "I'll need at _least_ one night to clear my mind after the clouding and beguiling effect you have on me. I would dearly love to stay, but the sooner I go--the sooner I'll be able to return."

"One last fuck goodbye?" she asked softly, sliding a hand down his chest with slow intent.

"You have a very dirty mouth," he chided, but kissed her in answer. "One...or two."

-

"Tell, woman, for almighty fuck's sake! I can't take it any more! I have suspicions and I want confirmation or denial."

"You couldn't work it out for yourself? You did see him, after all...you're supposed to be moderately intelligent, and you can't even slap two and two together?" Ginny danced a couple of steps through the snow and the tiny green and white dots of swirling light Emeryth had conjured for their walk back, spinning so the hem of her skirt flared out a moment, before coming to a complete halt. "You promise not to spill to anyone without my saying so, right?"

"Yes, yes, I'll never tell... now tell me."

"Tom Riddle. You might know him a touch better as..." A satisfied smile appeared for the merest second on her face as Emeryth sat heavily on the snow-covered ground.

"Fuck. Oh, fuck. You're fucking a young Lord Voldemort. Fuck me, but I... I'd thought maybe... Draco was subtle with his hint of what was occupying your time... and a hell of a lot else of yours... shit, I didn't know if that could be done. Retrieving a spirit from an object into a fully corporeal form... and you're still alive. Fuck. Unholy fuck."

"Many times. Often." Ginny sunk to her knees before her friend, one palm flat on the heavy covering of snow and ignoring the icy feeling seeping into her knees, her other hand resting lightly on her thigh. "I bled for him willingly. Each night, during the witching hour, he would come to me and I...I, well..." In lieu of a verbal finish to her answer, she simply held up the hand she had avoided showing, darting bits of wispy light swooping in to allow more than a hazy outline. Two lines of silver, the more intense over her heart-line, her life-line barely tinted, almost seemed to shine in the jade hues of fairy-light. "He's back, and I'm his."

Emeryth reached tentatively for her hand, delicate fingers closing around a slim wrist to draw it closer when there was no resistance, examining the scars intently and sighing. "I'm...I'm possessed by a most unbecoming envy of you both."

"That's not entirely necessary." Ginny murmured under her breath, her free hand coming up cold as ice to run fingertips over Emeryth's cheek, biting her lip as Emeryth shivered, unconsciously leaning into her touch with eyes half-closed. Tom had gone, he'd given her free rein this far at least, and she wanted it. Needed it. His loss, even for such a short time... days only, she knew he wouldn't linger away from her, but he was gone, and she would be alone if not for Emeryth.

There was no way this could be anything but invitation, as a Slytherin of an old family the only way Emeryth would be off her guard enough to do such a thing was if she'd already made her mind up to seize the opportunity should it arise, a moment such as this would never sneak up on her for so long... which meant...

"If you wanted to start making those unreasonable demands," Emeryth whispered, meeting Ginny's gaze slowly with a show of innocence, "this would be the ideal time to do it..."

Curling a hand around Emeryth's neck, sliding just a fraction of an inch closer to nip at Emeryth's lower lip, kissing her softly at first and then with more vigour when Emeryth's lips parted, when Emeryth's hands slipped around her waist, under the back of her shirt, Ginny didn't break away even when they fell back into the snow, the frozen ground doing nothing to bank the rising flame within them both.

Minutes passed in the world of fire and ice before they paused, gasping for a proper breath of air, and Emeryth removed a hand from Ginny's skirt to push tangled, soaked and rather cold locks of hair away from her eyes, finally thinking to ask "Does he--mind?"

"He encouraged me to do just this."

"Brilliant." With that comment she pulled Ginny down again, a casual brush of her fingers unclasping her cloak and leaving it where it lay, sliding over to slip a leg over Ginny's and finish unbuttoning the older girl's shirt, tugging it open gently and kissing her way down Ginny's neck, every move careful, deliberate, her hands slipping gracefully over smooth skin and drawing out Ginny's wildest urges, desires she'd not known she could feel, not like this, not at the hands and lips of the girl who'd been her best friend for three, almost four years with barely a hint of this skill shown now. Ginny's hands tangled into her friend's darker hair as she shuddered breathlessly, vaguely aware that she was outside the castle and lying on her back with her skirt hiked up to indecent levels, aware--so well aware that she was falling, burning with dark desire, mentally on her knees and begging for more. Tom was--different, very different, but this was just as real, just as perfect, and she'd never suspected, never known...

Never known she could have this bliss. It wasn't like being with Tom at all, her emotions weren't raw and bleeding, she didn't feel so entangled, so entwined, so owned. This wasn't about Tom, this was about her. This was what she wanted and needed and _had_, a fresh hunger and a warmth that burned her alive so beautifully, that flowed through her veins smoothly, as Emeryth's nails dug into her hips, drew down, as the Slytherin traced over her fresh scars with a wicked mouth that she'd inspected personally before Emeryth lowered her head once more, making Ginny shiver, gasp for breath and stop fighting for air when she fell.

She had fallen from grace more thoroughly now than ever before, with Emeryth's touch on her skin like sunlight but the warmth seeping though her to the bone, taking the world away in that moment of perfect ecstasy. If she listened to her mother she would be damned now, damned twice over but especially for this, but she wasn't, this was her salvation. Nothing made her feel more alive, she knew as she moaned softly, trying to gain a moment of composure as she drew Emeryth close again to kiss her, biting the younger girl's lip and sliding her own hands up to do away with the buttons on Emeryth's shirt, biting her again possessively as Em trembled against her, as she traced her own way down, drowning in the magic as she wove her own spell of nails and teeth and tongue and lips, teasing and taunting, tormenting, a trial and error process without any error that she could tell from Emeryth's hushed murmurs of her name, Emeryth's nails digging deep into her shoulders and fingers pulling her hair without intent or malice only caught in the feelings, the sensations that she knew she was causing in the girl.

She should have known this was possible before, should have found out, should have lived as she did now, but this was only the beginning. Only the beginning, she told herself as Emeryth bit her own shoulder to keep from crying out loud in pleasure, Slytherin claws dragging up over her shoulders as Emeryth found the release that she had.

"First--time?" Emeryth asked softly a moment after kissing her, one hand slipping up and rebuttoning Ginny's shirt as the other slid under, no shame in her eyes and no doubt that her ever so casual grope would be anything but welcome.

"Mmm," Ginny admitted with slight reluctance, pressing closer and resting light fingertips over Emeryth's hip, comfortable in their tangle. "Was I so very terrible?"

"I wouldn't have guessed, but, if you were going to do this with any girl it should have been me first and I'd be rather disappointed if it weren't." Emeryth favoured her with an almost-giddy grin. "Took you long enough, my dearest Weasley."

"I'd better be your only Weasley," she retorted with a grin of her own, shaking her head. "It's going to be bloody cold out here if this--feeling--wears off. Should we scamper inside and continue this enlightening then?"

"Oh, I'd never refuse... you." Emeryth tugged her clothes back into some semblance of order and dug into the pocket of her cloak for cigarettes, lighting two with a burning wand-tip.

"Mind if I bludge one?" Ginny asked as they set off for the school. "Tom forgot to pick mine up when he snatched me, and I've been--"

"Flat on your back ever since? 'Course, s'for you, I'm not Patsying it."

She chose not to respond to that comment, taking a long drag of the offered cigarette before she thought to question the unfamiliar reference. "Patsying?"

-

"Emeryth, get in here now!" Blaise appeared out of the shadows when they returned inside a careful pace apart although their hands were linked, sliding one arm around her sister's shoulders and another around Ginny's, tsking authoratively at the sodden state of their clothes. "Out of those wet things at once, children." She steered them directly down the stairs toward the Slytherin dormitories without looking up once, deliberately so, Ginny knew when her peripheral vision caught Hermione and Neville on the stairs above them as they went on without stopping. Both Gryffindors gasped, making stupid faces and by the time Hermione had found her tongue Ginny was ten seconds underground and never to be dragged back. Blaise realised this with a true Slytherin's instincts and released them, glancing about quickly. "All right. Run!"

They ran quietly the whole way to Slytherin common room, Ginny a good few paces ahead of the sisters, and came to a less than graceful skid and stop before the wall, Blaise rapping once on the door and muttering the password - Imperio, slipping halfway in while the fifth-years remained in the hall. "Everyone, avert your eyes. Thirty seconds," Blaise announced to the common room in general, reaching back and dragging them in quickly past the fourteen Slytherins and two Ravenclaws that didn't look up once as they made it to the girls' dormitory door. She rushed them into the sixth-year dormitories and pointed to her bed, stealing her sister's wet cloak away and closing the drapes halfway around them when they dove for the bed and landed on the nearer side. "Lurk," she commanded, tilting her head to listen, before she continued "Not a word, whelps," she decided after a moment, licking a fingertip and returning to the door, outlining a rune for 'water' on the heavy wood. "Sound carries," she warned and ducked out back to the common room and whatever she'd been doing with Terry before big sister-ly intuition had gone to work.

A few seconds later the low hum of the common room floated into the dormitory, and they could hear Blaise telling her fellow Slytherins that nothing had happened. Warrington had laughed, mentioning that they hadn't even noticed, and Blaise affirmed that his was a wise judgement. All was generally silent for a moment, then two, and it came to Ginny's attention that they were almost soaking wet from the snow that they'd not brushed away melting into their clothes. If they were soaked, Blaise's bed would soon be in a similarly uncomfortable state, so she began to peel her shirt off, followed quickly by her skirt. Emeryth watched with a bemused but interested expression, raising an eyebrow in question that lowered again when Ginny trailed a hand over her shoulder and down, wicked understanding clear in the younger girl's eyes. Emeryth pressed a fingertip to Ginny's lips, a reminder of the silence they were under, and nodded acquiescence with no less eagerness than Ginny felt, sliding closer and into Ginny's arms to be welcomed with a kiss, Ginny's nimble fingers finding the two buttons holding her shirt closed and unfastening them quickly, stripping her of the shirt adroitly and carrying on down to take away her skirt, gathering their discarded clothing in one hand and throwing it into the space between the headboard and the wall where it could be neither seen nor soak anything important that was still dry.

-

"I want Virginia Weasley out here now," a stern voice carried from the door, and they couldn't help but freeze despite the knowledge that McGonagall couldn't be in the dormitory. "Miss Granger saw her run down here with you, Miss Zabini, and I'd be ever so pleased were you to turn her over to me now."

"Professor McGonagall," the sardonic tones of the Slytherin head of house were easily audible now, and his expression was quite easy to imagine. From the sound of it he was gazing at McGonagall with all the love and warmth he felt for Neville Longbottom--absolutely none. "I fail to see why I had to be here at all, if this is a case of your missing house member. If my Slytherins have seen her, I'm quite sure they wouldn't hesitate to divulge such information. Blaise?"

"I caught Em coming in from the snow with Ginny," Blaise said in an idle voice, as if quite distracted. "They skipped out on me when I'd scurried them away from Grunge."

A scandalised gasp that had to be from McGonagall, and "Name-calling does not solve my problem. Where is Virginia Weasley? And I think I would like to have a talk with the younger Miss Zabini too, while I'm at it."

"That's a shame," Warrington spoke up now. "We haven't seen either of them."

"Did they not come in here at all, then?" McGonagall asked slowly, suspiciously.

"Professor McGonagall! I might be a Slytherin, but I'm still head boy--shut up, Malfoy--and I'd never lie over a matter of such importance!"

"Hmmph. Miss Zabini, why did you take it upon yourself to spirit the guilty pair away?"

"Professor Snape is our head of house. I was taking them to him, but his 'disturb me and die' sign was pinned to the door...and we have respect. We try not to infringe upon time that he's marked for other pursuits."

"Thank you, Blaise, I _am_ a busy man..."

"Professor, if you're so sure we're harbouring fugitives, I suggest you take a quick glance around and see for yourself," Blaise spoke lightly, casually. "I'd be _delighted_ to give you a swift tour of our secret lair, at least enough for you to ascertain to your own satisfaction that no Gryffindors hide within."

"Why, I shall take you up on such a generous offer, Miss Zabini," there was something sharp to McGonagall's answer, but Blaise took it in stride, yawning extravagantly as she paced her way toward the dormitory doors.

"If you're so pedantic," Blaise answered in a harmless tone, kicking the bespelled common room door open. "As you can see, they're not hiding in the hall here. Nor," a door was opened several steps above them, "are they hiding in the first year girls' dorms." The door was slammed shut after only a handful of seconds. "Funny, they're not in the second years' either. Or third. Or fourth. Look, they're not in the fifth."

Their door was opened now, and Blaise's voice seemed even more mocking than it had been when slightly dulled by spells and walls. "They're not in here," the door slammed behind Blaise and McGonagall, "And look, they're not hiding out in the seventh year dorms. Would you care to invade the sanctum that is the boys' dormitory, just to be _thorough?_"

"I didn't have a chance to look in the bathrooms," McGonagall pointed out with excruciating calm, and Blaise only laughed.

"Our bathrooms are dangerous. No one would hide in them, in fact, no one even washes in them. They're a biohazard. We ought to claim school funds to have them brought up to standard."

McGonagall really never _had_ been in a Slytherin bathroom, Ginny knew from her simple acceptance of Blaise's statement. Slytherins truly were brilliant at lying their arses off...and their plumbing facilities were a thousand times better than Gryffindor's, from what Ginny remembered when Lucrezia'd stuck her head out of the bathroom to spot Emeryth inflicting bloody mayhem on herself.

"I sincerely doubt funds will be forthcoming when Slytherin is still collecting an annual sum from parents for the maintenance of your... excessive habits."

"Donations made purely out of our mothers' and fathers' love for us, and from alumni with house pride."

"Extravagant elitism."

"Maintenance of a healthy standard of living," Professor Snape interjected at that point--so the intruding Gryffindor had been herded back to the common room, and wasn't going to come after them again. Ginny smirked at the temporary reprieve they had won, and kissed Emeryth happily.

The dull chatter that overtook the common room faded into the background, faded away as they continued kissing, with more hesitant touches that lingered, asking instead of demanding, slower and less frenzied than when they had been together in the snow. This was a new world to Ginny, although Emeryth seemed at least passably acquainted with it, this was... it was strange, in a lovely way.

It was the sort of thing her mother would kill her for...it was the sort of thing that made her see why she had been somewhat--prickly when other girls in their year tried to draw Emeryth away for whatever reasons, why she became beyond snarly when they had been toward the end of their second year and a Slytherin girl had tried to partner Emeryth in Potions--saving the younger girl from the horrible social stigma of associating with a Gryffindor. But Emeryth hadn't shown the least inclination towards seeking better company during school hours and after, before they were segregated for the night.

Almost--almost three years, if her reasoning was correct. "How long?" she murmured under her breath, pulling away a second to regard Emeryth seriously.

"You don't want to know," the Slytherin girl glanced away. "Tell you if I get drunk, all right?"

"If? So I'll be hearing by tomorrow night at the latest?"

The tiniest smile played on Emeryth's lips before she settled on an answer. "Fuck you, Weasley."

"Again? So soon?"

Emeryth didn't seem to have a problem with it, but again the door opened and this time they truly were interrupted. "Brats, you'd better be dece--" Blaise pulled aside the bed curtains and paused. "I'd get a bucket of cold water, but you're on _my_ bed."

-

"You couldn't have managed leaving us alone another twenty minutes?" Emeryth grumbled as she pulled on the shirt her sister threw her, then the skirt. Ginny was too busy blushing furiously at the level look Blaise aimed at her momentarily, and was all too glad to borrow the elder Zabini's clothes handed over with so little care despite the obvious value of every garment.

"Not really, because in about twenty minutes McGonagall will have thought of a will o' the wisp spell to find the pair of you, and it could get our house even further in the shit than we already are now, were she to find you in here," Blaise nodded toward the door, clapping her hands once. "Move it. Common room, now. We're calling council."

"Calling council?" Ginny muttered with the faintest feeling of deep ignorance. Slytherins were complex, party to far more intrigue and weirdness than she'd encountered in the simple Gryffindor life she'd led.

"When there's... potential crisis. Those who're of ability to help, those who're friends, will be there. It can be a bit of a free for all, but Blaise's probably gonna be in charge. We only go to Professor Snape if we can't sort it out alone," Emeryth filled her in quickly. "Not a word about the other matter unless you start it."

Ginny frowned, nodded, and slipped an arm around Emeryth's waist for something like support as she went out into the common room again, awaiting the accusing glares of the Slytherins for the trouble she was causing them.

It was something of a pleasant surprise for her to see the room nigh-deserted, only Casca Warrington, Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy, Terry Boot and Lucrezia Jegado occupying two sofas, and none of them looking at her with anything stronger than amusement, although Jegado looked deeply confused as well.

"Well, Blaise?" Warrington asked. "You called, your sister and her... friend... are the ones in trouble, explain the situation to us and tell us the best possible outcome."

"Rumour has it that we - either Slytherins as a whole, or possibly just Em, have turned Ginny's mind and made her a crazy lesbo. Ginny's done _something_ to her brother, according to Grunge, and we only wish she'd done it with a knife. Current state of it, McGonagall, Grunge, and Pothead are after her. Weasel's dim as all fuck and insists that if Ginny's happy, he's happy. So of course this is Ginny's fault, but she didn't do it on purpose, they just want to talk at her about the 'changes' she's going through." Blaise waited for the laughter to subside before she continued, "And so I'm _almost_ sure there's some sort of precedent for seeking sanctuary from one's own house, hiding out in another. I think the best thing to do is buy the brats some time. That's why you're here, Malfoy, your mum's the best lawwitch still alive. Would she take a call at this time of night?"

Draco rolled his eyes and got up with a heavy sigh, taking the green salt-shaker from the mantelpiece and shaking it over the low fire that burned to counter some of the damp not held at bay by spells. "Malfoy Manor. Wherever Mum is."

Ginny's heart leapt at the hurriedness of the whole situation--Narcissa's owl had been the one to deliver Tom back to her, the Malfoys had to know what she had done, they had to have a suspicion at least, they would say something... they might _already_ have said something to Voldemort, Tom might be hunted at that very moment--

Narcissa Malfoy gazed out of the fireplace at them all, wreathed in light blue flame, hair perfect and without even a touch of make-up that was, as far as Ginny could see, quite unnecessary in the first place. The woman frowned momentarily before she cleared that expression with slight effort, managing a generally blank look instead. "Draco? What's wrong, darling?"

"Oh, yes, darling, what's wrong?" Warrington mocked cheerfully at Draco, only to be hit in the head with a cushion aimed by Pansy Parkinson.

"Leave him alone, all right? He's doing his part."

"Quite. I'll not say another word, I swear."

"Casca, don't make me tell your mother that you're sleeping with a Hufflepuff again. You know I'll do it."

Warrington looked scared, and at least cowed for the time being, stuttering in mock-horror, "Y-you can't prove a thing! ...I'll be good, Mrs. Malfoy."

"Good? Only when you're dead, dear. Now, son, what makes you call at the ungodly hour of eight at night?"

"The littlest Zabini brat and the girl Weasley are up shit creek with Ye Olde Bat of Gryffindor. They want legal advice," Draco said with a sideways glance at where the aforementioned girls were curled up on the sofa, taking the part left that wasn't occupied by Terry, Blaise and Lucrezia.

"Shove the most coherent one in front of the fireplace then, let's make this as swift as possible."

Blaise got up after a second when it was evident that neither her sister nor the Gryffindor seemed at all willing to face up to their problems, and sat cross-legged before the fire, Draco moving a step out of the way. "Mrs. Malfoy, I _am_ sorry to have conned your son into calling you at this time, but the situation is... I'd like to get it resolved as soon as possible, preferably without the old bitch coming back and starting in on me. You're the best lawwitch we've access to, and as a Slytherin yourself, I thought I could owe you one until such time as I'm able to adequately repay you."

Narcissa nodded briskly, waving a hand that was briefly visible through the flames. "Standard terms, don't worry about it now. What specific advice are you after?"

"Inter-house sanctuary. Granger - bitch Mudblood, sixth-year, has McGonagall hunting down Ginny Weasley. My little blister's involved with it too now, as I've caught them practically in the sack, and house rumours have pretty much slapped them together anyway so it's no secret. I know it's not been invoked too often over the years, but there was an incident about twenty years or so ago, and from dad's stories, you're fairly well-informed on... everything. Can we call sanctuary for the brat, and get a general leave-off given to McGonagall?"

"What have you in way of evidence?" Narcissa asked thoughtfully, turning her head aside a moment and calling for a 'Blinky' to bring her the fifth-year book.

"Almost any Slytherin and half the Ravenclaws could testify to Grunge's behaviour bordering on obsessive these past few days," Blaise started, ticking them off on her fingers. "The bitch accosted your son yesterday to demand he hand over Ginny, so Draco's possible as a witness. Ginny's been 'missing' from Gryffindor all weekend. Luc Jegado spotted her in bed with Emeryth or as good as, so her whereabouts can be proven, and whilst I know this is only a temporary measure, I have very little clue as to exactly what they've been up to this weekend, I think it's best for all important concerned--us, namely--that they have time to prepare their case and get their story straight before they're hauled up in front of Gryffindor Authority."

"That makes sense," Narcissa glanced down, evidently flicking through a book from the sounds of it, and glanced up again. "Sanctuary's been invoked three times in record. 1437, 1799... and when I was in my fourth year. You've the misfortune of remembering Gilderoy Lockhart?"

A resounding and unenthused chorus of 'Yes!' made the Slytherin graduate smile wryly. "He ran and hid with the Gryffindors for three days because Walden--little Chris' father--kept beating him up for being a wanker. Many's the time Gilderoy showed up to class with dripping long hair in a distinctly... swirled style. This is useful to us, in that it's so recent that it's still in their memories, and they granted that sanctuary without contest because he went running to Gryffindor. All right, write this down..."

There was a frantic scrabble for parchment and quill as Ginny watched, hardly daring to breathe. They were doing all this for her--for their house, too, but for her--and Narcissa hadn't said a word about the diary, about Tom. Either they thought she'd not met with success, or...or they were keeping silent for their own reasons. What game were they playing?

"Right. Hex away," Blaise rearranged herself comfortably before the fire, a notebook taken from Pansy in one hand and a quill from Lucrezia in the other.

"Claim of sanctuary demanded, and Weasley's full name. Next line, reason--and make it one that can stand up in a court of fools, as that's where it'll be headed--after that, two signatures of those who'll speak for the girl, then head of h...actually, get Warrington to sign whilst you're at it, then Severus. A claim has to be ratified by the house head, but Warrington's scribble on it will give it extra weight. After all, the whole _school_ trusts the head boy, don't they?"

"Oh, yes," Blaise agreed with a shared smirk, industriously writing down all relevant that Narcissa had said. "Triplicate, I assume? And then?"

"Triplicate," Narcissa confirmed, snapping her book shut and tossing it aside to someone. "Weasley has to sign it last. One copy to her head of house, one copy to Severus, one copy she has to carry on her at all times until she doesn't need it any more. That's it... and oh, Sev's going to be thrilled with me for setting this up."

"He's always thrilled with you, mum." Draco commented lightly, ducking his head to hide a smirk of his own, not at all abashed at her glare.

"Thank you, Mrs Malfoy," Blaise muttered with a mock-glare of her own at Draco. "I apologise for your son, he's quite oversexed. You should have a little chat with Pansy about that, next holidays."

"Oh, believe me, I shall. It was quite a pleasure to help you, Blaise. Anything to continue causing McGonagall havoc even though I've long since departed those hallowed halls. Good night, children."

A chorus of good nights from the gathered students, and the fire flickered out for a second to be replaced with far more normal flames.

"Okay, chickens," Blaise hopped up and returned to the sofa, flopping down between her sister and her boyfriend, ripping three clean pages from the notebook and copying out the standard form in a minute's frantic writing. "Time's running short. Pass around."

More quills were produced, the excuse Blaise gave for sanctuary--undue harassment for personal lifestyle choices--given Ginny's approval, and those required to signing the forms, Draco stepping in as second to speak for Ginny after Emeryth in the light that Blaise's signature might carry less weight after her sister was first, and all forms went back to Blaise the moment they were done. "Off to Professor Snape now. Ginny, Em, you're coming. Draco, Casca--oh, let's make a party of it. Luc, Pansy, get your arses up. We're going for a walk."

And so six Slytherins, a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor crept from the Slytherin common room toward the rooms of Professor Snape, five of those and the Ravenclaw casually encircling the troublemaking pair against the possibility of other prying eyes, stealth their watchword until they reached their destination and Blaise rapped lightly on the Professor's door.

"Come in," they heard him say casually, and saw his expression change subtly as he realised whom he was visited by. "Yes?"

Blaise stepped forward, one hand reaching back to grab her sister and Ginny, hauling them forward with her. "Sanctuary forms. Please? If you don't mind..." she held out the three pieces of parchment, obviously expecting a stern reprimand, if not her head bitten off.

Professor Snape held out his hand without further question, not rising from his seat for reasons that they didn't care to dwell upon, picking up a quill from his desk as he glanced over the first one. He almost--almost looked amused, shaking his head and applying his signature to each form in turn, putting one aside for himself and deliberating over the other two. "I detect Narcissa's ever-subtle hand in this. If they choose to contest sanctuary..." he commented dryly as he looked over their statement, then to Emeryth and Ginny, "I advise you to pack a change of clothes and run to the Astronomy tower. Professor Sinistra would take a perverse pleasure in hiding you. Shall I send this to Professor McGonagall myself?" he indicated to the second form, giving Ginny the third without waiting for an answer. "Dmitri, take this to the cat-woman."

The raven that had been still and silent atop a skull on the bookshelf fluttered down, hissing unappreciatively at hearing whom he would be delivering to, but holding up a taloned foot to accept the parchment. Dmitri flapped out of the professor's room when Pansy thoughtfully opened the door for him, and Professor Snape looked at the gathered students curiously. "I have an appointment with a lovely ex-student, and she should be arriving any moment now. Why are you all still here?"

They turned and ran as one, Blaise the only one with presence of mind enough to call back a thank you as she was pulling the door closed behind them.

"That's...that's just _sick_, it's fine in theory, but the actuality of it--" Warrington rambled expressively, waving a hand for emphasis. "It's like knowing your _dad's_ getting laid."

"Ignoring the vicious rumours that went on when Professor Snape and my parents were at school... Some of our walls aren't soundproof," Draco muttered glumly, a look of something akin to disgust on his face. "And I've actually walked in on mum and dad at it on the breakfast table."

"At least your mother's still gorgeous."

"Casca... shut up or die."

The male bitching carried them right back to the common room door and Casca uttered the password without a care for the Gryffindor in their midst, all eight trooping back in. Blaise carried on her merry way to sprawl on the sofa with only enough consideration for others that she lifted her feet to let Terry sit, making prompt use of him as a foot-rest.

Ginny shook her head in the hope that the preternatural strangeness of the whole situation would resolve itself in her mind, but after a moment resigned herself to the fact that life was just weird. She had been inducted into Slytherin, and it seemed like half her immediate problems were over. "Now what, then?" she questioned Blaise as the only one who seemed to be nominally in organisation-mode. Lucrezia and Casca had disappeared in different directions, Draco and Pansy were snogging against the wall, leaving herself and Emeryth where they stood in the middle of the common room. She now had... nothing to do, no pressing concerns. McGonagall was off her back, she had to be, at least for the night. Tom wasn't going to contact her until the next afternoon, they had agreed. Which, realistically, meant... "We could just go to bed, if we're not going to be needed."

"Good idea. Piss off, get some sleep," Blaise advised cheerfully in dismissal. "Emeryth--don't forget, silencing spells are your friend, and ensure that your dorm-mates don't smother you in the wee hours."

"I'll remember," Emeryth grumbled in response, and they vacated the common room quickly in favour of Emeryth's bed.

Who'd have thought being wicked could be so fun?

-

Whilst wicked girls went to bed at Hogwarts, and the head of Gryffindor screeched indignantly, many miles away in the magical heart of London a boy wandered the streets. Casually, ever casually, careful to ignore the late-night pedestrians also walking Diagon Alley as he maintained the industrious air that he was just passing through with important business elsewhere, Tom Riddle couldn't help a slight smirk.

He lived again, he breathed, and the future was looking much, much darker than he'd even dared dream.

Gone were any old thoughts of aiding his other self--he was flesh and blood and magic again, it was every Dark Lord out for himself. Last time, his thoughts had been of helping the other, the 'real' him. This time the world was his, to fuckery with the incompetent who had been trying to take over the world for _fifty years_ and had little to show for it except people being scared of him.

Terror wasn't the best method of acquiring what he wanted, Tom knew as he sauntered down Knockturn Alley, turning left through an oak gate to land himself in a small courtyard that was, despite dark decor and only one lamp burning, nonetheless a great deal cleaner than the rest of Knockturn Alley's various shops and other service-providing establishments. He swatted away the repelling charms and sidestepped a particularly vicious hex hurled at him from an automatic warding spell to enter through a heavy wooden door that opened at his touch when he reached out and _pushed_ with magic. Not enough to show his full power, never showing his hand before he had to, but enough to establish that he wasn't to be trifled with. The twelve occupants of the small inn's tavern looked him over, obviously wondering what someone so young--he looked twenty at best, and part of the disguise Ginny had wrought upon him was innocent-seeming brown eyes--was doing in The Hanged Man, not the most notorious place for evil wizards to venture, not the most frequented, but definitely one of the best.

This time, the key was _control_. "I'd like a room for the night, please."


	10. Chapter 10

**Walking Higher 10**  
by Faith Accompli

Notes: The monkeys you recognise from the books belong to Rowling, everything else is either mine or no one's. I have finally fixed the 'complete' tag on this story to read 'in progress', because I didn't notice it existed until today when McTabby pointed it out. If you're rereading this, McTwibs, thank you! Dedicated to my naggy lamb, btw. ;)

* * *

"Oh, _do_ wake up!" A pale brunette Slytherin Ginny recognised from classes as Julia Trucido was shaking both herself and Emeryth awake with no heed paid to their state of undress _or_ the three snakes coiled in bed with them. 

Either she didn't notice or she wasn't the sort to care who people slept with...or perhaps she'd decided that since Emeryth had no problems with a Gryffindor, why would a snake be a problem?

"Emeryth, breakfast's in fifteen, Ginny, you've classes with us and as far as we know, you haven't a single thing with you, so we've done a whip-'round--" Julia dropped a neatly-folded armload of clothes on the end of the bed, indicating to them as she went on, "You're closer my size than Em's, even if you're skinnier--bitch--so these should fit you. Now get in the shower and wake up, both of you."

They scrambled up quickly, Emeryth remembering to throw the covers back over the snakes that lingered in her bed before they made a somewhat crooked beeline for the bathroom which was in no way as filthy as Blaise had led McGonagall to believe the night before, claiming the first shower to their left.

Five minutes into their rapidly-dwindling allotment of time, as Emeryth was dragging shampoo and conditioner down from an inset shelf and she was making good use of the rose-scented soap, Ginny brought herself to ask softly, "...what now?"

"Right now?" Emeryth answered, eyes tight shut as she rinsed her hair out and slathered on conditioner. "Right now we get clean, we get breakfast, we get to class. And we wait to be called up to the old fart's office."

"Fuck. Last night was _not_ the end, was it?" she queried, taking to her own mane with the rose shampoo.

Emeryth dashed the water out of her eyes with one hand to give Ginny a searching look before she turned away, ducking to pick up the soap again. "No. No, it's not. Even if you weren't playing a deeper game than this... we're only getting started."

"I can't tell you how reassuring that isn't," Ginny smiled impishly before slipping back beneath the shower, noticing abstractly that the water-pressure was better in the Slytherin showers than it ever was in Gryffindor as a method of distracting herself from the real issue until she'd had time to think. Something in Emeryth's tone had been... different. Different, and she couldn't quite put her finger on what, on why. Damn Slytherins and their ability to disguise their issues until they wanted to bring them to the fore, anyway. There really _wasn't_ time for this now, although it was going to rattle around in the back of her mind until it came to some sort of resolution.

Emeryth was dragging her out of the shower now, passing her a towel and hurrying back to the dormitory, the younger girl drying her hair quickly as she ran and discarding her towel as she ripped a drawer open and tugged on underwear, stockings, then the shirt and skirt someone had thoughtfully thrown atop her bed beside the clothes set down for Ginny. "We're late, we're late--"

"For a very important date?" Julia and Lucrezia had waited for them, Lucrezia unsubtle about watching as they dressed, and Julia held out a bag not dissimilar to the one hanging from her own shoulder. "Ginny--this might be useful. You're going to have to share textbooks, but we cobbled together what we had spare of."

She took the bag with a smile of gratitude as she struggled into the borrowed robes complete with Slytherin crest, accepting a hairbrush from Lucrezia and running it through her hair quickly as she slung the bag over her shoulder, straightening her tie with her free hand. "Thanks. Do I look presentable?"

"Ravishing as ever," Emeryth told her with a quick kiss, tucking her necklace away beneath her shirt from where it had come free of its own accord before making certain that she had sufficient ink and parchment to last the day, darting off to collect the books they would need for the morning's classes and glancing over to Julia. "Time?"

"Seventeen seconds 'til the deadline I gave. Another seven minutes until breakfast actually starts." Julia inclined her head towards the door. "If you're both ready?"

"Where do you think you are going without _me?_"

Ginny stopped dead in her tracks and slunk back to the bed without a word aloud, shaking her head and mentally kicking herself. "Nidhogg, come on then--"

"Keep watch over her, he tells me. Not so easy when she tries to leave me behind at every opportunity--"

"When did you get a snake?" Julia asked in curiosity, eyes widening a little as the adder coiled up Ginny's arm and into her robes.

Julia, it seemed, was the very picture of organised obliviousness.

"She'll tell you later," Emeryth answered for her, taking her offered hand and sauntering towards the door. "C'mon, Julia, you don't want to be _late."_

_--_

The Hufflepuffs regarded her with an absolute lack of comprehension when she entered the hall hand-in-hand with Emeryth.

Most of the Ravenclaws held nothing in their casual gazes but mild amusement, although there was disapproval from those nearest the head girl, those in her circle of friends.

The Gryffindors, though... a sea of hate, it was a sea of hate, near every face turned to her with loathing, even from the baby first years, most of whom she had shepherded around in their first days at Hogwarts. The girls of her year were staring at her with a particular venom, Colin looked simply confused, Mac was nowhere within sight, and she didn't dare look further. Poison, bitter poison when she turned away from the house that had claimed her for so long, they _hated_ her.

She tensed against her will, her breath stopped a moment and her heart skipped. She almost lost her footing--and Emeryth noticed, Emeryth squeezed her hand, their eyes meeting for just a second. She had nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to fear, there was _nothing_ the Gryffindor collective could do to her because she'd thrown her heart into the snakepit twice over, and serpents had their own uncanny loyalty. It wasn't fierce like Gryffindor fire, burning out at the most inopportune times, it was ice. Cold, constant, eternal and beautifully deadly... like she could be. Like she _would_ be.

She held her head high as she walked with Emeryth to the Slytherin table, taking a seat near the head of the table where she could watch the entire hall. They wouldn't cow her, they wouldn't _touch_ her.

The Slytherins welcomed her into their midst, most with no more than a nod or a quick grin, one or two with a dirty comment, but Casca Warrington jumped to his feet, kicking aside a few plates as he got onto the table, and he pulled her up beside him with nary a care for the strange looks cast at them from around the room.

"Oi, listen up!" Warrington stomped hard on the table--unnecessarily, every Slytherin eye was already turned to them, and a few of them were snickering softly, with far more idea of what was to happen than Ginny had. "I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome our newest Slytherin. I don't know quite how long she'll be with us, given that _wanting_ to be a Slytherin is tantamount to signing yourself into St. Mungo's, but while she's with us--I trust you'll be excruciatingly nice to her." He bowed gracefully, the hand around her waist ensuring that Ginny bowed too or risk an unsightly struggle atop the table, and then raised her hand high in imitation of the winner of a duelling match after the referee found it safe to step back in the middle of things. "Ladies, gentlemen, and...others, Virginia Weasley!"

The Slytherins applauded, every single one of them. Their noise drowned out the angry comments from the Gryffindor table, the shocked murmurs of Hufflepuff. "Thank you. I think...kill me now."

As the applause slowed to a dull roar, Casca grinned at her and let her escape back to her seat, taking his own with all the dignity and poise of a circus clown. Emeryth rested her face in her hands for a moment before glancing sideways to Ginny, who was still blushing furiously. "I apologise. He always has been a bit of a git."

"It's--fine, it's all fine," Ginny murmured, willing the blush to die away fast. "After Fred and George I can stand anything, honest."

"Ouch. Point," Emeryth granted with a wry look, spinning Ginny's plate back into place from where it had gone flying at her sudden tabletop appearance, and shook her head as though to clear it. "Anyway. Think you can live through the day?"

"I can live through the next minute. And the one after that, and the one after that," Ginny cast an annoyed look toward the Gryffindor table. Her shame, not self-inflicted, was gone. She was doing what she wanted, and if that was a crime--well, let them catch her red-handed. She'd give them the finger and carry on her own path. They had the problem, not she.

"Before we eat--" Dumbledore had risen to his feet, tapping lightly on his goblet with a golden fork and clearing his throat.

The angry murmurs of Gryffindor cut off instantly, Hufflepuff's confused mutterings barely a second behind.

Half the Ravenclaws were silent already and had been for some time, poring over their notes and reading surreptitiously under the table, the other half finished their discussions with speed, one eye on the high table as they did so.

The Slytherins took their leisure finishing their conversations, down to the tiniest first-year girl, a blonde waif with a high-pitched but pleasant voice as she chirruped about an upcoming Potions test to a boy not much bigger. One minute, two, three, and then Professor Snape glanced casually over to them, raising an eyebrow. Dead silence reigned at the Slytherin table, and the timing was not lost on the other teachers.

"I... would like to say a few words. And I would like each and every one of you to listen, take my words to heart," Dumbledore paused for a measure before looking over the assembled students. "These are dark times. We are beset by adversity at every turn, every way we look, there are shadows. Now... now is when we must stand firm within our houses, and remember that even though we are all of Hogwarts - our houses, our families, can give us the strength to turn away from those shadows."

Pansy yawned luxuriously across the table from her, one hand raised delicately to cover her mouth. Draco pretended to be asleep. Blaise was scribbling something on her napkin in silver ink before she folded it elaborately and set the napkin-hat upon her head.

'Wake Me When It's Over,' Ginny read to herself as Blaise slumped forward onto her folded arms, finding the Slytherin reaction to Dumbledore's speech of more interest than the speech itself.

She let her gaze wander as her hand slipped over to Emeryth's, winking innocently. Emeryth took her hint without another prompt, sliding onto her lap and kissing her gently, one hand rising along her side gracefully, an exquisitely choreographed movement done for both her and their audience, which quickly began to take note. Ginny followed where Emeryth led, the world slowly drifting away until it was only them, until Dumbledore's voice blurred into the background noise. Unheeded by them, unheeded by the rest of the Slytherins who had found a show more interesting by far save for the genuinely unconscious Blaise.

"Very nice," Casca commented lightly when they drew back a moment for air. Most of the Slytherin boys and quite a few of the girls were applauding them, wolf-whistling and cheering, some of the younger Ravenclaws were applauding, and Sally-Ann and Sophie from the Gryffindor table were joining in alone amongst the lions, absolutely uncaring of the glares sent their way.

Dumbledore, she saw out of the corner of her eye, was looking pleased with the Slytherin reactions, very pleased, until he realised who they were _really_ watching. "And most importantly--" he said, raising his voice slightly, "I want you to look after your housemates. Care for each other, make sure their needs are filled and that there is nothing... absolutely _nothing_ that they desire, nothing that could let them be tempted from their path. You know the cha--yes, Emeryth?" Dumbledore paused in the midst of what he obviously deemed a fine speech to hear the question of the girl on Ginny's lap who had her hand raised.

"It's not that I mean to question your wisdom, professor--but this speech of yours _does_ seem to be a little pointed," Emeryth glanced around the hall thoughtfully. "From my position it seems as though it's exclusively in light of last night's events. I just thought I'd mention that we Slytherins _are_ looking after our housemates, _especially_ our newest. And I'm doing my level best to make sure her... needs... are fulfilled."

Blaise wasn't as asleep as Ginny had thought, judging from the suspiciously muffled giggle that came from just down the table, and she wasn't alone in her amusement. Every Slytherin in the room had heard Emeryth's counter-point, from the tiny blonde at the end of their table to Professor Snape at the high table, and they were all hiding said amusement with varying degrees of success.

"Later today, Emeryth, I will speak to you about your subversive activities. What I have said holds true for _every student_ in this school," Dumbledore turned slightly to look at Snape, his brow furrowing in deep thought, "Every student, and every teacher."

Professor Snape didn't even blink, gazing at Dumbledore without a trace of comprehension in his pitch-black eyes. She _knew_ the professor wasn't slow, if he wasn't understanding a word the headmaster said, it was on purpose.

"It's in the school's best interests that we do not undermine each other's work--and last of all, I wish to be kept informed of _all_ that occurs within these walls--yes, Lisa?"

Lisa Turpin at the Ravenclaw table lowered her hand, sitting straighter and raising her voice to say, "Do you mean _everything?_ Because if that's the case, I'm in danger of flunking Transfiguration, I'm on the rag, and I think _everyone_ should know that Justin Finch-Fletchly's one of the worst lays known to witchkind."

"That is, perhaps, more detail than is required," Dumbledore said sternly. "Before irrelevancies delay us any further, let's eat."

At that cue the house elves magicked the food up from the kitchen, only minor havoc ensuing at the Slytherin table in front of Casca two places up, when a pot full of tea sans actual pot blinked into place, splashing over head boy, toast, and assorted baked breakfast-goods.

Emeryth resumed her seat with a sigh, gazing disinterestedly over the sumptuous array of food before she settled on an apple danish, not batting an eyelid when Ginny helped herself to half of it as Pansy poked the truly-sleeping Blaise in the ribs and the sixth-year jumped in surprise, one hand already raised to smack the other girl senseless before she recalled that she'd asked for it.

Slytherin really was a lovely place, Ginny decided, when one saw it from the inside without Gryffindor bias, without those rosy-hued shades. Emeryth had told her the night before that this level of house-wide co-operation wasn't always so likely--in the days before Lord Voldemort's second rise there had been petty bickering in their midst, untold amounts of petty bickering. Never to the point of murder, not even an irreversible curse or two, but there had been more leeway, they'd not been frowned on quite so severely before Lord Voldemort's resurrection. They'd always covered for each other to the outside world, but now--now they gave new meaning to house solidarity. They had to.

It was far easier to be a Gryffindor, she thought with a fragment of distaste. Gryffindors were all that was holy and good, _they_ didn't need to justify their every thought, word and deed. It was, all in all, an enormous scam.

In this day and age, it really was a _crime_ to be ambitious and cunning. The Slytherins were none of them inherently evil, none of the people around her were mired in the rank decay of entropy, their 'evil' was no more than moral indifference and a willingness to stomp people who got in their way. If that was evil, someone might as well stamp 'Spawn of Salazar' on her behind--it would go nicely with the snake scars Tom had gifted her with. She was sleeping with the young dark lord, she had given of her blood that he might live, why not mark herself truly?

Of course, she had to be subtle, for now. But her eyes were open, and she could see. _Witchsight, she'd heard of it long before she had entered school, Percy had read the old legends and myths to her from the moment she'd been able to comprehend his simplest words. Percy had been determined that she would know, and she'd lapped up his tales like a kitten lapped up milk. They had lurked in the depths of her mind with countless other fragments and pieces, half-bits of knowledge that she couldn't lay full claim to at the time..._

She would not, she decided, be sharing her visions with her _old_ friends under the banner of the lion. They just wouldn't understand.

They wouldn't _want_ to understand, knowledge was _not_ prized in Gryffindor as it was in Ravenclaw, as it was in Slytherin - ambition and cunning might be their primary driving forces, but they could appreciate intellect as the rare coin it was, be it dealt in large or small purses.

Chilling, almost chilling, to realise how swiftly she had stopped thinking of herself as a Gryffindor. How swiftly she acknowledged herself to be...other. She hadn't thought of herself as a true Gryffindor since her first weeks of Hogwarts, and after Tom had left her she had been--existing, not living.

The song of the lions had held a jarring note when it reached her, a note that only she could hear for everyone _else_ in her house certainly grew to fit the mould that shaped them, she alone had been the reed that neither bent nor broke--the reed that sidestepped to avoid the breeze.

Of her year, only Colin didn't look at her with loathing, venturing a tremulous smile that she returned quickly. Harry bloody Potter was alternating between glaring at the Slytherins as a whole and casting beseeching looks at her, Hermione was all-out glaring. Ron grinned widely and waved at her with both hands, almost braining the Mudblood with a spoon. She waved back and broke eye-contact before her brother could try and call out, her gaze roaming further down the Gryffindor table.

Parvati and Lavender had found things yet more interesting than what house she was in, and were happily working out an astrological chart. She had to give them credit, even if her brother and his friends didn't, they were good at what they did. Better than Trelawney, not that that required a vast amount of skill or talent. Sally-Ann and Sophie were engaged in animated conversation, but the Muggleborn witch nodded encouragingly before returning to whatever controversial topic they were arguing this time. The waves of anger from the Gryffindor table didn't seem quite so fierce this time, not when amongst the crowd there were a few that didn't see her change of allegiance as a complete betrayal that ran soul-deep, that stabbed each and every one of them in the heart. She only wanted to murder a few of them, after all.

--

"Ah, Ginny? Dear?" Emeryth's voice drew her out of her thoughts. "Mail's here, and I think you're in trouble."

Ginny followed Emeryth's line of sight, only to curse fluently in archaic Latin. Errol was winging his tired way to her, bright red envelope clutched in his talons.

Errol dropped the howler into her hand and promptly passed out between teapot and toast-rack. "**How _DARE_ yo--**" Her mother's voice filled the hall, and Pansy was already in action, leaning across the table to pluck the howler from her fingers, dropping it without ceremony in the milk jug.

"No Slytherin parent would dream of sending a howler during public hours," Pansy said lightly, looking at the milk jug with distaste. Unfortunately, its immersion hadn't made the letter malfunction, her mother's voice muffled and garbled, coming up in bubbles as the milk began to steam.

Draco stuffed a date scone down the neck of the milk jug, then another, silencing her mother's voice. "I never did like date scones," the boy commented as he watched the jug dance, his morbid curiosity shared by the rest of the seniors.

Its bouncing really _was_ starting to get disturbing, Ginny thought as she slipped a hand under the table to grasp Emeryth's. Soft pops punctuated each new bulge in the gold-finished jug's sides, and Casca for one was starting to eye it worriedly. The jug hopped again twice, paused to tremble violently, and the trepidation on the face of every Slytherin mounted. They weren't stupid, they had enough experience in Potions that they could figure out the probable effect if intervention wasn't forthcoming. Ravenclaws were starting to look concerned, their ready minds jumping to the right conclusions.

Casca had enough, it seemed, as he caught up the jug in one hand, shouting "Lurk!" as he pitched it up into the air, over both his table and the table of their usual-allies, the Ravenclaws.

As one, Slytherins and Ravenclaws abandoned their breakfasts to dive beneath their tables, Ginny included. Warrington's warning hadn't sparked anything in _her_ memories, but it certainly seemed to be something in the shared Slytherclaw vocabulary, and it struck a chord somewhere in her mind, something she suspected she had--for lack of a better word--absorbed from Tom, either in her first year or her fifth.

Seven Hufflepuffs and five Gryffindors had the sense to duck before the explosion, she saw when she and Emeryth peered over the table again. One Hufflepuff was bleeding above the eye from shrapnel she had not been fast enough to duck, and Potter was pale as the milk he had been splashed with.

Professor Snape resumed his seat at the high table, his example followed by Vector, Flitwick, Hooch and Pince mere seconds later. "Ten points to Slytherin, Warrington." The professor resumed his meal calmly while McGonagall looked outraged.

Vector twisted to dig out a piece of gold-hued shrapnel embedded in the back of her chair, which she eyed thoughtfully. "And another five," she said, pitching her voice clearly enough that the entire school could hear, "for your timely warning."

Casca looked quite surprised, and McGonagall rounded on Vector as the closest target. McGonagall's words were quiet enough for her to miss, but Vector's response was sufficiently moderated that the older Slytherins and Ravenclaws could hear.

"It was going to blow up no matter which way he pitched it! At least this way _my_ throat wasn't slit!"

Hooch was looking at Warrington with no small amount of lustful longing now, the same longing she gazed at Ginny with when _she_ was on the Quidditch pitch, same as she gazed at Draco, same as Emeryth. Same as Angelina the year before...either Hooch had varied and cradle snatching inclinations, or she was desperate to throw them together in a Quidditch team together under her direct supervision.

Hmm. There was an interesting idea. Perhaps she should talk to Tom about having the Chudley Cannons massacred. They could join the league as Team Morally Indifferent, if she could con Angelina to their side once her Magpies contract was over and find a decent pair of beaters...it would be a nice sideline for when they weren't actively involved in taking over the world.

"No more points will be awarded to Mr. Warrington, no matter _how_ timely his actions," Dumbledore said sternly. "Mr. Potter was almost grievously injured," At this prompt Potter held up a particularly large piece of shrapnel that had buried itself in his bacon, "and I will not allow such things to befall him. Or anyone else under my protection at this school."

Dumbledore's last words seemed to have a hint of the afterthought to them, and it wasn't missed by most of the students, particularly Susan Bones of Hufflepuff, who glared up from where she was wiping the blood from her housemate's face with a clean handkerchief, saying in a light but malicious voice, "Oh, yes, heaven forfend that we interrupt precious Potter's morning meal. But never mind the _rest_ of us, really, sir, we're just _fine_."

"Isn't this just a pretty mess, then?" Emeryth shook her head, casting a mock-sorrowful look over the chaos of the hall.

"Oh, _yes_," Ginny replied after a moment, sighing melodramatically. "Look, poor Hannah almost got scarred up something wicked, Vector would be dead if not for her good Ravenclaw upbringing, and - lest we forget - Perfect Potter's breakfast was almost _ruined._ All because my mother has no sense of dignity."

"Why on earth did you go out with him, anyway? Potter."

Ginny blinked twice at Emeryth's forthright question, frowning a little as she thought back. "He asked. Unspoken familial pressure. I had nothing better to do. If I'd had the faintest inclination that you... well, it'd not have happened."

"I...I thought I made it bloody obvious, I swear..." Emeryth protested in the faintest whisper, looking genuinely shocked, pure dismay crossing her delicate features--not marring, never marring, but showing her an insight into the depths of her fellow Slytherin's feelings. _Too deep, almost too deep, as encompassing and raw as her feelings for Tom that she'd never thought she could admit to, let alone _have..._it hadn't cut so deep for her, she'd never thought she could have more than friendship with the younger girl, anything that had played in her mind for more than a fleeting instant had been locked away quickly behind walls that had only grown stronger with time..._

"Don't worry about it," she managed after a moment's silence, trying for a reassuring smile as she raised her hand, traced down Emeryth's cheek with gentle fingertips before she kissed her lightly. "Your words of wisdom on Potters being notoriously poor lays helped keep me from making a _deeply_ stupid mistake that I'd not be able to take back. We have now...and you'd not have wanted me back then." She ducked her head, biting her lip, her gaze straying to the innocent remains of the breakfast she had no real desire to finish. "I was just a stupid Gryffindor."

"You were never _just_ a stupid Gryffindor," Emeryth grinned, hugging Ginny firmly and whispering quiet so only she could hear, "You were the stupid Gryffindor that I took great pleasure in perving at for the last two and a half years, and now you're the stupid Slytherin that shares my bed."

"Very thankful for your hospitality," she sighed softly, sliding a hand around Emeryth's waist to pull her closer with a patently false devious look. "That and your...generous nature."

"Any time. Really."

"Come on, poppets," The world had moved on without them, and Julia tapped Ginny on the shoulder to haul them back to the present, nodding her head towards the door with an economy of motion that had come to Ginny's attention long before she'd learned her fellow Slytherin's name. "We have a very important class in a scant few minutes, and our lovely head of house is not one that I like to keep waiting."

"That's not what's written on the bathroom wall," Emeryth said cheerfully, mostly-untangling herself from Ginny and collecting her bag from the floor with the hand that wasn't in Ginny's. "Hell with it, we've ten minutes before we have to get to class. I want to skip outside for a few."

Julia frowned at her watch, nodding after she met Ginny's gaze. "Fine. Five minutes and then we're back inside, whether or not you have your carcinogen fix for the morning."

"You don't have to come with," Emeryth muttered half-heartedly, only to catch an incredulous look from Lucrezia.

"You know damn well you shouldn't be about sans honour guard," the blonde chided, "even if you have no honour to speak of."

They made it ten steps, Ginny tugging along a fuming Emeryth, before Natalie MacDonald crossed their path.

"Ginny!" the third-year exclaimed, ducking around Julia before the Slytherin could do more than yelp in protest. "I know we're not s'posed to talk to you, but, look, here." She presented Ginny with a full pillowcase, evidently the first bag the young Gryffindor could find, and went on to explain, "It's--your books, and some clothes, and stuff. Hermione says you'll be back by dinner, soon as you 'find out what Slytherins are _really_ like', but the way our house is acting? I doubt it."

Warrington had been on his way to intervene in case the Gryffindor had viritolic words or curses for their newest Slytherin, assessing the case quickly as he reached them, and he took the improvised bag from Ginny with a promise that he'd drop it in the dorms, wandering away again without stopping to chat. Seventh-year privilege, she supposed, for he certainly didn't act as though he had a class to attend in a few minutes. Not unless he habitually wore fluffy gorilla-feet slippers to class, anyway.

Ginny called a thanks after him, answered with a wave of his hand, and shrugged, looking at the young lion thoughtfully. "Thanks, Mac. It really is--appreciated, you're a good kid."

"Well, duh," Natalie rolled her eyes expressively. "I'm a little angel. The game this Friday," she moved on through the conversation without pause, steering it where she wanted to go with a Gryffindorly lack of subtlety. "You're not going to play for us, are you?"

The game. She'd completely forgotten, probably the only one in the entire school to have done so, and it was the...much _anticipated_ Slytherin-Gryffindor match, probably the most explosive game of the year!

"I don't know," she gestured for the Gryffindor to accompany them at least part of the way, sensing that Emeryth was becoming more antsy, and they resumed their exodus with only a few Hufflepuffs and a first-year Gryff having to be growled out of the way. "If it was last week's 'puff match, I'd say yes, I was, but--it's a conflict of loyalties. I _can't_ turn my back on my house, just to piss off and play for Gryffindor _against_ them. Hell, I probably couldn't play for you against Hufflepuff either, every point counts."

"Well, we're fucked then," MacDonald said with a bleak grin.

"I'm sorry," she offered with a touch of futility, a wan look of her own. Mac's high regard of her Quidditch skills was--nice, it really was, but she realised she didn't _want_ to play, not for Gryffindor, not with Har... _Potter_ as captain, not with her brother on the team, not with her every fickle loyalty rewriting itself in green and silver ink.

"I understand." Mac gave her one last smile before she began sliding through the Slytherin mass to go upstairs. "Thanks anyway, Gin."

"Hey, Mac--" Emeryth called out suddenly, the Gryffindor stopping short at the second stair. Ginny looked sideways at the shorter girl, raising one eyebrow. Emeryth, as a long-time Slyth, had rights that she didn't know how to claim yet. "After we Slytherins kick some Gryffindor arse, we're having a victory party. Count yourself an honorary Slyth for the night if you want to come."

Mac looked genuinely shocked at this odd generosity, glancing to Ginny for her confirming nod. Most Gryffindors would've found it insulting, the automatic assumption that Slytherin would win, that a Gryffindor would want to sully herself in the snakepit, but Mac had never been that slow. She'd said herself that Gryffindor's team was fucked without Ginny--their current chaser lineup was working well together, taking Ginny out of the equation threw them all off-balance.

Ginny was as talented as Angelina had been, and fucked was a fair assessment. Mac being an actual friend--not close, but a friend--of Ginny's _off_ the pitch as well as on, when the clamour and the rush of Quidditch fever wore off, essentially the third-year was one of the few enough Gryffindors that'd come to the realisation Ginny was an actual person, not just a set of Quidditch robes, a prefect badge, and a long mane of red hair.

She could almost see the thoughts ticking through Mac's head; Ginny was okay. Ginny was a Slytherin now. Ergo, Slytherins couldn't be completely rotten through and through. Even if the Slytherins _did_ win the next match, Mac, at least, wouldn't be excluded from the celebrations. Parties good.

"If _we_ win--I might just crash your common room anyway," Mac said at last with a cheeky smirk before bounding away upstairs. "Ta!"

Julia rolled her eyes and promptly hustled the other Slytherin girls outside the moment the third-year's back was turned, sitting down on the clean-swept steps with one eye on her watch. "Don't bother nicking off to the niche," she advised.

"Because even if you're snapped fagging, it's not as though you can get in any _more_ trouble," another voice finished behind them, causing Lucrezia to jump in startlement.

"Hi, Professor," they chorused innocently as Vector claimed a spot on the top step, fumbling a cigarette box out of a robe pocket, tapping one free and lighting it with a silver Muggle lighter.

"Hi, ankle-biters. Don't worry about the tax--" Vector nodded to Emeryth as the girl started to pull out an extra cigarette. "I actually remembered to buy my own last weekend."

"And people say that quitting weed isn't good for you!"

"Shut up, Trucido. You've Arithmancy in two hours, I'm not going to forget this by then."

"Yes'm," Julia mumbled, suddenly finding her own fingernails very, very interesting.

Professor Vector smiled smugly before tucking a lock of blonde hair back and turning to where Ginny and Emeryth sat half-entwined on the steps. "So. Weasley?"

"Yeah?" Ginny looked up from her intense focus on a bad attempt at smoke rings.

"Would you mind _terribly_ if I were to write a polite note to your mother and suggest she never sends another fucking howler to you ever again?"

...Slytherins got away with a _lot_ more than Gryffindors. "Would you? Please?"

"I'll do it just before I go to wake Sinistra up. No worries."

"Thank you. Thank you very much." She couldn't hide a small smile of anticipation, then. Oh, the look on Molly Weasley's face...

---

Tom awoke late, by his standards, with early-morning light seeping through the darkened windowpanes. By his estimate it was eight fifteen, eight sixteen, and most of Diagon Alley would have been open for business a quarter of an hour. Knockturn Alley, of course, never closed. He was safe here for the time being, safe from recognition by means visual or magical, but he couldn't afford to tarry. Virginia's illusion-spell kept old...acquaintances from recognising him, an illusion that would, could only be seen through by a true witch, blood and mind and spirit.

His witch was young, very young, but her power after her awakening was unmistakable to him when she reached for it. She had reached deep into herself for the final note of magic and blood that cast him into flesh, and there lingered in him a trace of herself, her magic. It was another guard, a fragment of protection woven bone-deep, and a very, very useful one. Pure witches were thin on the ground, perhaps one to every ten thousand pureblood females, and those that came to terms with their power were even fewer. Most knowledge of such a status, such a rank had been lost centuries before so it had been no great surprise to him that Virginia went unnoticed, but still, it was a matter of almost-curiosity why Malfoy had chosen her for his sacrifice.

Something about Witch _did_ call out to the old blood, the pure blood men...and some of the women, too. He would have to make it thoroughly well-known that she was his before she walked into the councils of power, lest she be given a more tempting offer.

A more tempting offer? Hah.

His Witch had resurrected him, she possessed him just as much as he possessed her, and the end results of such a twisted affliction remained to be seen, but he could easily come to enjoy it. Those who had held power over him in his schooldays, those who thought they could order him around, didn't even know he lived and breathed again. Any control held over him by Virginia's blood was, truly, a welcome comparison. Raw power ran in her veins as it did in his, but her mind... her thoughts... were kind toward him. _Delightful._

One light breakfast later--nothing compared to the food created at Hogwarts by 'indentured servants' but still nothing to sneer at--and he was on his way through Knockturn Alley, heading towards Ollivander's.

The bell at Ollivander's door tinkled cheerily as he entered, leaning casually against the bench that symbolically separated the customers from the wands. Ollivander wasn't slow in emerging from the stacks, glancing over Tom with puzzlement in his eyes before he spoke, "And how might I help you? Not your first wand, I hope?"

"Hardly," Tom answered with a slight sardonic smile. "My wand was taken by another wizard when I wasn't in the country. It's quite time I gained another, anyway."

Ollivander nodded with a briskness of manner that belied his age, selecting a box at apparent random and opening it, offering Tom the wand easily. "I'm sure you're not unaware of procedure. Twelve inches, holly and dragon."

He lifted the wand, sketched a quick symbol in the air that glowed ice-green before fading out. Technically it was a good, serviceable wand, but it didn't reach out to him, it didn't choose him.

"Not a perfect match," Ollivander seemed to agree with him, turning to select another wand much less at random, as Tom returned the first wand to its box. "I don't believe this one will be quite right for you either, but whatever response you elicit will greatly narrow the fields. Try it," the old man offered another open box.

This wand reacted even more poorly, shooting an arc of red-gold flame out to set a glass vase on fire. Not the spray of baby-blue roses and assorted tiny flowers inside the vase, but the glass itself, which was rarely a good sign. He replaced the wand with the utmost haste, not even daring to hope that Ollivander had failed to notice but snapping "Finio," at the same time as Ollivander did.

There was an entirely too thoughtful set to the old man's face now, as he returned the wand-box to its proper place, as he moved around the bench to flick over a hand-written sign hanging on the door. 'Closed for lunch', despite the early hour.

"Perhaps you ought step out the back with me to discuss exactly what sort of wand is suitable for you... Mr Riddle."

--

"Wake up! Wake up wake up wake up!" She bounced hard on the bed for good measure. "Wake! Up!"

"Vtrria...g'nn _kill you_...lemme'_lone,_" the raven-haired woman trying to be asleep beneath the covers mumbled, managing perfect clarity on the two most relevant words.

"But, _stuff's_ happened!" Never one to stand on her dignity, although sometimes one to lie on it when she couldn't be arsed moving, Victoria Vector flopped down comfortably at the top of Selene's bed, mere inches from the tip of the Slytherin teacher's nose. "I can see that things are being shaken up something wicked right now, and you should be awake to look at them, and prod them, and then gaze up at your stars and tell us what the fuck it means."

"I'll kill you if you don't get out. Now."

"I'll kiss you if you don't get up. Now."

Selene opened one violet eye to estimate how the resolve in Victoria's voice matched the resolve on her face. "...I'm getting up. Get me tea and cigarettes. Bitch."

After three cigarettes, a cup of tea, and a refreshing blast of icy-cold winter air from the window Victoria had helpfully opened, Selene was feeling almost conscious enough to state the obvious. "It's daylight. There's no stars."

"Fuck. I knew I forgot something." Victoria grinned innocently over her own cup of tea. "Oh well. You're awake now."

"Oh you _cow._"

"Moo. So. D'you wanna hear it?"

"...yes."

"_Well,_ you were conscious for Virginia Weasley's flit to Slytherin, I know--'cos McGonagall came up here to scream at you, too, and I was generously letting you steal my cigarettes at the time...but she caused quite a scene at breakfast, with a little help from her friends."

Selene actually opened her eyes wide enough to see more than a vague haze, blinking a time or two in a vain effort to become more adjusted to the light. "Wait. What. Pitched battle?"

"Not the Gryffindors, the Slytherins," Victoria corrected her assumption, even though the Arithmancy teacher's phrasing had seemed sarcastically misleading, "They made _much_ of her--and Warrington pitched a Milkotov cocktail over towards the Gryffindors, but that didn't seem too premeditated. He warned our houses to duck first, of course."

"What a good boy. I hope he was justly rewarded?"

"Ten from Severus, five from me, absolute condemnation from Dumbledore 'cos he _nearly_ waxed that Potter brat at the same time."

"I'll send him a bottle of Absinthe for his valiant efforts." Selene decided, smirking at the look of absolute shock Victoria wore.

"Out of your own pocket?" Victoria now looked positively distressed. "Who are you? What have you done with the real Selene? She's locked in a dungeon somewhere, isn't she--"

"Of course not, O moronic drama-queen. From the school cellars."

"Oh, that's all right then. Anyway. First off the little Weasley wandered into the hall arm-in-arm with her girlfriend, and the hate was pretty much _rolling_ off the Gryffindors--so Warrington decided to make a scene. Dragged her up on the table, made a witty little introduction speech with references to St. Mungos--he was wearing the slippers you bought the team, too--"

"And then?"

"The old Weasley bitch sent a howler to the girl, Pansy and Draco tried to drown it in the milk jug, which then danced about the table and exploded mid-air, but--oh, shit, you should've heard Dumbledore's speech. I was about ready to rupture my eardrums with a dull spoon. Warrington showed why he's a fucking good Chaser, and--anyway. Seriously, something's up! I know your house's pulled its socks up in the last year, but this is brilliant. Rumours of a Slytherin hive-mind are already spreading."

Selene laughed aloud, putting her cup of tea down for a moment, raising one eyebrow mock-enigmatically. "You will be corrupted. Resistance is futile."

"Freak," Vector poked her tongue out before lounging back in her chair, gesturing lazily with one finger at Sinistra's response. "Your house is also about one step from standing up en masse and giving Dumbledore a great big fuck off."

"It's completely his own fault, you know!" Selene thumped her fist on the table, then winced and sucked on her fingers for a moment. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. We have our pride, damn it, and he tells us that if we're just willing to confess our bad deeds and do penance for them the next hundred and fifty years, then maybe, eventually, people will like us. Most of the kids haven't even _done_ anything besides beat up and hex little Gryffindors in the halls, and that's hardly grounds to be sent to Azkaban! You've seen what they get in way of detentions from any Gryffindor teacher--"

"Why d'you think I've been volunteering to take detention so much this year?"

"...point. Anyway, the old git's policies are just _fucked!"_

"Ooo, Selene's revolting...and she wants to stage a coup, too."

"Whore," Sinistra tapped idly on the table with dark-painted nails before musing, "I wonder. Are we getting some sort of central organisation of house Slytherin back again? It's funny that this happens now, with Weasley jumping ship and causing such a bloody splash...she was fucked with by a memory of Lord Voldemort in her first year, I know, but everyone _said_ she got over it..."

"With the time-honoured Gryffindor method of force-feeding the poor girl chocolate until she was ready to burst, yeah, I'm sure it did wonders for her. She doesn't seem particularly Gryffindor, as it goes, and had to have been spectacularly mis-Sorted...she's not mad, which is what usually happens when someone decides to oppose their house. She and Zabini have been dancing around each other for a good year or two that I've noticed, but what made her do it now?"

"I think I'll call her up here. Make a few inquiries. I know Potter was dim enough to shove Lord Voldemort's diary back at Malfoy when that annoying house-elf started popping up, and everyone just _left_ it at that..."

Victoria smiled slowly, every last piece of the pattern slipping into something readable at Selene's words. "What if she asked for it back?"

"Precisely."

--

"You can dispense with the disguise if you care to," Ollivander said quite cheerfully as he led Tom into the labyrinthian house behind his shop, opening at last a short door that Tom had to duck through before emerging into a pleasantly-lit parlour furnished with antiques.

"Pining for the fjords," Tom muttered quietly with a flicker of resigned amusement at Virginia's _odd_ sense of humour, feeling the illusion unravel itself for the time being as he sat down on a black leather sofa. Ollivander looked genuinely startled for the first time since he'd entered the shop in search of a wand, and had to swallow several times before he could bring himself to speak.

"You're... young again."

"I always was," Tom smiled softly, dangerously. "Now that we're so closely acquainted, do you have a reason?"

"For you not to kill me? It would look slightly suspicious, the mark a wizard such as yourself leaves behind on his victims...and I do agree with a sizeable portion of your original ideology." The old wizard took a deep breath before he continued, "And you do want a wand that's the best. I can make you the best."

"That's a good reason."

"I thought so," Ollivander said, smiling slightly as Tom turned the charm back on. "Now, Mr Riddle--may I call you that, or have you another name you'd prefer?"

"Riddle will suffice for the moment."

Ollivander was watching him with a gleam of bright curiosity in age-lightened eyes, unarmed it would seem, but more likely than not _quite_ well defended, with the wardings he could see bespelled into the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the mirrors. Years of work, and Ollivander evidently felt secure talking to him here--talking what amounted to treason, by current Ministry laws. "You're not quite your old self, I see. Attempting to distance yourself from the man currently flagging in his campaign to cleanse wizarding society today?"

"In a way. My other self has made entirely too many mistakes on his path to greatness. I was given the opportunity to return, three years after my last somewhat disastrous attempt, and this time I believe I shall succeed." Tom's gaze rested on the man sitting opposite him, gnarled but skilled hands lightly on the leather armrests of a chair that dated back at least some hundred years. Old--older than any other wizard still living, his life almost certainly extended by his craft to the age of--four hundred now, perhaps a little more? Old enough to have seen dark wizards rise and fall, old enough--and pure of blood enough--to be worth listening to. Old enough to be a valuable ally, if his words indicating support and agreement with Tom's policies could be taken at their implied value. "Are you interested?"

Before Ollivander could answer, giving the question time for thought that was only proper, they were interrupted by two small and spotted felines that entered the room as though they owned it, one jumping easily into Ollivander's lap and the other rearing up on its hind legs to regard Tom with a thoughtful air before leaping onto the couch and sprawling artistically across his legs.

"Hello, you," Tom murmured to the Kneazle that had claimed him as a seat, scratching the animal gently behind its tawny-spotted oversize ears. "Aren't you gorgeous, then?"

"I'm in."

He looked up to see Ollivander gazing at him very interestedly--him and the young Kneazle purring like an old motor-car, rubbing its head into his hand for further attention. The feline had accepted him, and that--more than anything--had sold Ollivander on his side, plans as-yet unheard. "Brilliant."

The Kneazles seemed to trust both him and Ollivander, which indicated that they were rather dark Kneazles... another for the books, evil Kneazles...but that reassured him somewhat. His raw power, combined with that which he had tapped from Virginia, and Ollivander's advanced age and knowledge made it rather evident that if they were to try and double-cross each other it would be mutually assured destruction, even without the cats there, and overall he was inclined to trust the old man, as much as he trusted anyone.

It didn't seem a _terrible_ thought to share at least a hint of his plans with the man, not when Ollivander had sworn to his side. No great binding oath, but Slytherin honour dictated they wouldn't screw each other over on a matter like this. "My other self made several crucial errors--making sure the European community feared him, for one, instead of taking full control in a simple decisive move."

"As you intend to do?"

"As we plan to do, yes."

Something in his own phrasing made Tom stop a moment. _We._ Oh, shit.

Somewhere along the line, he had switched from 'me' to 'we', which was nothing short of disconcerting.

Yet...

Yet...

Was it a _bad_ thing? The self-centred portion of his mind screamed that yes, it was, whilst the cunning and analytical side insisted that it was nothing of the sort, it could be used to his advantage.

He had known that something of a bond would exist after his return if Virginia had survived--

"I'll fetch us some tea," Ollivander said quietly, recognising another man's need for a few minutes of alone-time, rising and taking the Kneazle climbing up his chest with him.

Tom nodded in response, unable to answer verbally, so wrapped up in his thoughts was he. One week ago he had told himself he didn't particularly care if Virginia lived or died; it had been a lie, he may not have realised at the time but now he knew...

This wasn't _anyone's_ standard definition of love, not by a long shot--it was a jealous, possessive need, one _not_ solely for Witch's power but for the Witch herself. _His_ Witch, fiery beauty, flawed perfection, a contradiction in terms for no man could claim Witch without her willing it so, but the last two days his subconscious had been slowly accepting this--now it struck him hard like a blow to the head.

He wanted her forever, almost as much... as much as he wanted eternal life. He had brought her so far, he had shaped her with gentle touches and--less gentle, bringing the darkness up in her first year only to have it fade back when he had died--now it returned with a vengeance.

With that vengeance came her loyalty, her life she had pledged to his even if she wasn't consciously aware of it--her life she had given first, her heart swift to follow. She had woken properly at his hands, half-fighting him and half-fighting herself, but she had resolved her thoughts and feelings with less turmoil than he was experiencing now...unless she was simply blocking it all, pausing until she felt she had the time and the space to go through it for good.

He loved her, in his own way... and she loved him.

"Virginia..."

A cup of tea appeared before his eyes and he took it from Ollivander with a mumbled thanks, still lost in his musings. Milk and half a sugar, his preferred way--how _did_ Ollivander know that? He didn't recall stopping in for tea, unless it had been after he entered the diary.

This he had not anticipated, not seriously. Yes, when he had first fallen into Virginia's little hands he had thought to make _her_ love _him,_ but the feeling was _not_ supposed to be reciprocated on his side. The long-term effects of the charm he hadn't spared her, the care he had taken and the thoughtfulness with which he had listened to her and advised her, it had proven of more value than he had anticipated; she had brought him back when _she_ needed him without any prompting, she had brought him back because she thought she needed what he could give, she desired him.

If she hadn't wanted him back she would have guarded herself, there was no doubt in his mind, because despite the charmingly naive front she displayed to the world, despite the consciously innocent thoughts she had kept at the forefront of her mind as she acted against the greater good, if she _had_ been the innocent child they thought her to be--she would not have survived, she would have died instead.

The terms in which she had couched her reasoning for bringing him back were deliberately childish, so much so that they were a nightmare-inducing bedtime story of redemption, but beneath the calm and kind veneer Virginia Weasley wore, she was not, had never been the good little girl they thought her to be. She was faux-innocence that welcomed a chance to act out her corrupt little fantasies, and she would work well with him. Perhaps better than he could have dared hope...

"We're currently searching out people suitable to join our little group," Tom said after another minute spent clearing his mind, sweeping away the troublesome thoughts that had been resolved, rationalised, or earmarked to examine later when he had the leisure. "Would you know any likely candidates who have the right political and immoral leanings but... failed to join my other self's crusade because he seems to be something of a raving lunatic?"

Ollivander regarded him calmly for a minute before he nodded. "Many."

--

Potions class was even more interesting than usual--for Ginny and the rest of the Slytherins, at least--in that those deemed advanced enough had been sent to work at the back with their modifications of the Censeo potion in an attempt to improve on it, or if not improve; at least test their practical method and teach them what was not a good idea.

They were deeply engrossed in ingredient-substitution for a less noticeable taste and Professor Snape was lecturing the Gryffindors in a condescending tone on their poor Potions skills--if it could be termed such, which he doubted--when an abrupt knock came at the door as it was pushed open, and Granger appeared in the doorway.

"Ginny, you have to go to the headmaster's office. _Now._"

Professor Snape raised his eyes to give Hermione a glance that would make Longbottom wet himself, and spoke softly, "Perhaps, Miss Granger, you failed to notice that I am currently teaching a class?"

"Oh, no, Professor Snape, I don't mean to intrude for long. I'm just here to get Ginny."

"And I am just here to teach. But how, pray tell, am I to do this when I have annoying children running in and out and trying to take away my good Slytherin students?"

"Professor McGonagall sent me," Hermione protested at once, seeming hell-bent on hiding behind her head of house's authority as a way to escape further ridicule, "because Professor Dumbledore's expecting her."

"Oh, is he? I _suppose_ I must send Virginia and Emeryth on their way, then." The professor looked over to where they were carefully measuring dried Pogrebin blood and pouring it into their cauldron, sighing with obvious displeasure--not at them, at the unnecessary interruption, they knew. "Virginia, Emeryth, a guard of six."

They rose, Emeryth tossing their unused ingredients back into a clean cauldron and Ginny gathering their books to jam them into her bag, six of their fellow Slytherins--Julia, Pru, Mordion, Alexander, Livius and Osiris--two girls to four boys as one handed their stuff to Lucrezia, Eithne and Iain for the remaining three Slytherins to finish and pack up.

"Off you go. Stall them until I arrive. Eithne, scout out Blaise, Draco and Casca--send them to loiter outside Dumbledore's office. Iain, you're nominally in charge until the class ends, full authority. Lucrezia, dispose of the Slytherin experiment, we'll begin again next class--" Snape started to leave the classroom as the nine Slytherins sent elsewhere had left, and Granger was still stammering that she was only to collect Ginny. "Miss Granger, _do_ stop babbling."

As he left he heard a Gryffindor girl mumbling something about 'so much fuss over that Weasley slut' only to be sharply reprimanded by Creevey, with the accompanying sound of a heavy slap. "Ten points to Slytherin, Mr. Creevey," he heard Iain say behind his back as he closed the door.

Awarding Slytherin points for a Gryffindor boy hitting a Gryffindor girl... ah, he'd taught his house well.

--

He only had one detour to make on his way to the headmaster's office, up countless...or fourteen...flights of stairs to the tower-rooms that the sole other Slytherin teacher held, conveniently close to the astronomy classrooms and decks, and walked through Sinistra's office-slash-living-room to find her not present--she hadn't crawled down for tea in the early hours, so logic dictated that she malingered in bed like the lazy woman she was.

Opening her bedroom door without bothering to knock as only a fellow Slytherin or a particularly adventurous Ravenclaw would do, not paying particular attention to the soft laughter he could hear within, he stopped for only a moment at the sight of Professor Vector convulsing on Sinistra's bed, the raven-haired woman he had expected to find curled in her blankets instead busy tickling the helpless Ravenclaw. "...Selene, so good to see you conscious at such an early hour."

"Blame the witch currently undergoing her punishment for that one. She came in and rudely awakened me before you had the chance to." Sinistra's eyes sparkled wickedly as she dragged Vector up into something approximating a sitting position. "I've heard some of what happened at breakfast, and Vic and I have come up with some interesting theories. Haven't we?"

Vector's giggles were subsiding rapidly, and she could bring herself to speak a moment later, "Yes, we have. Your new Slytherin's been acting oddly the last few weeks, and her Arithmancy work's improved tenfold. That kind of breakthrough's not completely unknown, but she's changed more'n that."

"I've been thinking... you do remember saying that the feeling in the dungeons was akin to when an echo of Tom Riddle was possessing Virginia?" Selene asked him, unconcerned about his noticing her lack of decent robes and her arm so casually around Vector's shoulders.

"Yes?"

"Vic and I think the little sprite got the diary back, somehow. It's a bit of a logic-leap, but she's the maths witch and I read the stars--we're used to this kind of step. Potter threw it back at Lucius Malfoy after the showdown, what's stopping her from begging it back?"

"Very, very little." Snape smiled, crossing his arms as he inclined his head towards the door. "I came to collect you, as it happens, because you _are_ the other Slytherin in authority at this miserable place of sweetness and light...and Virginia has been called up to Dumbledore's office for a number of offences, not the least of which are bespelling her brother into a state of complete idiocy and switching house allegiances with such a light heart."

"Must say I've not noticed any changes in Ron Weasley..." Sinistra frowned, getting her snaky comment in before she had to be serious. "We should probably rush off and defend Virginia, at least keep her from being forced to admit anything to _them_."

She and Vector were already heading for the door before Snape coughed once. "Selene? As delightful as your half-naked flesh is, I think if you wish to be taken seriously you should look into putting some clothes on."

"Damn. Right."


	11. Chapter 11

**Walking Higher 11**  
by Faith Accompli

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Disclaimer: Most characters Rowling's. 

Notes: This was started before OotP, so is not canon-compliant with books 5-6. It won't be compliant with book seven, either. Anything that does seem to be compliant after that is probably pure coincidence! Thank you to those few souls still reading. ;)

Other Note: three thousand ffn-caused-html-screwups later: akeuhfaek.wtg ekvtvr. I hate the ff.n formatting RUBBISH. It is just... oh, I'm going to have to go through old stuff to fix up the lovely reformatting job ff.n did a while ago and I'm LAZY and I don't want to. Also, Foofy, post more chain or else you'll never see chapter 12 finished!

* * *

"So you've now decided that not only is the heir back, he's working with Virginia to...do what?" Snape muttered quietly beneath the secrecy spell all three of them were consciously keeping up in a space not two feet wide around them as they glided swiftly down the empty halls of Hogwarts, all students except those dispatched on intraschool missions safely locked within the classrooms or in the comfort of their common rooms if they had no class that day. 

"The same thing he does every time, Severus," Vector murmured back as she toyed with a hair-ribbon, knotting it precisely as her own version of the silence bubble thickened and blurred the exact movements of those within so no particularly clever person could lip-read and thus determine what they were talking about.

"Try to take over the world," Sinistra finished for the blonde, straightening her robes as she walked until they swished to her satisfaction in a suitably Slytherin manner. "What do you _think_ he's going to try to do?"

"Oh, I don't know, my first thought was a range of designer hair products," Severus snapped, turning the corner and walking a half-step in front of them by the time they passed Peeves artistically gluing a Gryffindor second-year to the wall. Draco, Blaise and Casca were loitering in a most unsubtle manner just a few feet before them, and peeled off to slip inside the protective safety of the silencing spell, questioned the moment they arrived as to whether they had any idea about exactly why Weasley had been called up.

"Grunge was throwing accusations to the effect of Ginny having mucked with her brother's mind, no difference that we can see," Blaise volunteered first, nodding to Draco to continue.

"It's not just that she's been in bed with a snake, either," Malfoy nodded towards the statue leading to the headmaster's office. "The wanker's got no idea what's going on, I'd say, or else he'd have stomped down on her a _lot_ sooner, not that I even know half of what's happened."

"And it's not just about house sanctuary," Casca added. "I looked it up, they've never dragged a brat out of class over it--it's always been handled after school hours, the few times it's happened."

"So we're going to have a _lovely_ knot to untangle here, aren't we?" Severus remarked drily, kicking the gargoyle statue that took the password and dropping the silencing spell in unison with his fellow professors in order to snap the password, "Cockroach Clusters" before the door opened and the staircase began to wind upwards.

The spell that had allowed them a measure of privacy in which to use actual names and specific terms gone, Sinistra glanced sideways at Malfoy as they climbed the stairs, taking them two at a time to spite the staircase in their usual Slytherin manner as she deliberated on her choice of wording. "Oi, Malfoy," she settled on after a moment. "You haven't given Virginia Weasley access to illicit literature in the last month or so, have you?"

Draco looked at her for a moment in genuine startlement--he'd thought she spent so much time looking at the stars that she couldn't see what happened beneath her feet--and nodded once. "Just one book. She asked."

"What book might that have been?"

"Oh, I don't know how to describe it," Malfoy said softly, choosing his words with as much care as she did. "It was just one of those old books we've had in the family collection for some time. I think it was the only one ever made."

Oh yes. Virginia Weasley had Tom Riddle's diary back, which made her capable of anything. They had _certainly_ best protect her from the lions until such time as she made full disclosure to her concerned and caring professors, then.

* * *

"Fuck, but this is boring," Ginny grumbled as they waited in Dumbledore's office. Mordion was busy poking at a silvery contraption on a small side-table with a book that he'd plucked from Dumbledore's bookshelves, an undoubtedly priceless volume that began to smoulder from a puff of smoke emitted by said contraption, and the boy quickly threw the book into a wastepaper basket beside Dumbledore's desk. 

He returned to his place beside Prudence and crossed his arms in unconscious mimicry of his fellow five Slytherins on guard that ringed in a half-circle behind the chair Ginny sat in to await her punishment, with Emeryth on her lap, the younger girl beginning to braid Ginny's hair in slender snakelike plaits.

"No kidding," Emeryth murmured, finishing one plait and moving on to another lock of hair, shifting restlessly and glancing up at their guard. "You'd think, wouldn't you, that if they were in such a rush that they had to yank Gin out of Potions they'd actually bother to see her 'fore the hour's over."

"But they couldn't do _that_," Pru snorted, leaning on the carved back of the chair and flicking a stray strand of Ginny's hair back to the side on which it belonged. "The whole point is that they want her to sit and Think About What She Did Wrong so she's a quivering nervous wreck by the time they come to show her how she can change and be good again."

"Sounds right," Julia said in a tone fit to carry through to the next room where Dumbledore, McGonagall, Granger and the Weasley boy were ensconced coming up with their master plan. "And what do you say to that, Virginia?"

"I'd like to go with a resounding 'Fuck that!' thanks, Julia," Ginny smiled wickedly and kissed Emeryth, one hand straying under the girl's shirt to take advantage of her whilst she was distracted, knowing that although the Gryffindors probably weren't _watching_, they'd hear all about it.

"Would you _stop_ that?" an outraged voice carried from the next room, a voice beyond scandalised and moving well into horrified mortification.

"Just because you can't get any girls, Granger!" Julia called back with perfect innocence, winking at her fellow Slytherins and waiting for the fallout, deliberately looking devastated when not another word was heard. "Now she won't even rise to the bait. Gryffindors _are_ a sorry lot."

"Aren't they? I'm well quit of them." Ginny's hand paused over Emeryth's ribs as Fawkes entered the room through a window conveniently left open for just such an instance, the bird alighting on Dumbledore's desk and tilting his head to glance at Ginny thoughtfully.

For a moment, for a heartbeat, she felt deeply chilled--_the bird remembered Tom from last time, the bird had helped _murder _Tom's basilisk, the bird had to know that Tom was back, that _she _had brought him back--_and then she relaxed. Fawkes' eyes turned away from her as the bird began to preen out his tail-feathers, for all intents and purposes ignoring the seven Slytherins and the snake curled around Ginny's neck.

A golden-red feather fluttered away from Fawkes as he took off to swoop over their heads and land on his perch by the door, the bird's eyes closing with a finality that signalled _he_ at least didn't care to wake up until such time as they'd departed his bedroom.

Ginny's gaze rested on the feather, biting her lip in deep thought. Fawkes had been the contributor of Tom's original wand-core, she knew that much from what he'd mentioned in her first year... surely a feather from Fawkes would be best for his next wand--and a feather so freely given? "Emeryth, love? Nab that for me, would you?"

Emeryth complied without question, darting forward to snatch the feather from the desk and hide it in an inner robe-pocket with nary a moment to spare before the Gryffindors clumped out of the other room, both professors and prefect with their stern faces on, Ron with the same somewhat cute but _deeply_ stupid expression he'd been wearing for days.

"Ginny, dear," Professor McGonagall started as Dumbledore took his seat and she and Hermione claimed chairs to either side of the old man, their placement careful to ensure the Slytherins knew whom was in charge overall. "We asked for you alone to come to this little informal gathering on account of--we want to help you. We've noticed you're not happy, and we want to make things better."

"That's so very kind of you to notice," Ginny replied quietly, her hands snaking around Emeryth's waist to hug the girl close and glare over her shoulder at the Gryffindor panel, "_Now_, that is. Where were you in my first year when Tom was driving me insane? Where were you in my second year when my lovely Gryffindor yearmates were too _scared_ that I'd contaminate them to even talk to me, and the _only_ person who actually wanted to be my friend was a Slytherin, the kind of person I'd been conditioned to fear because of her inherent evilness? Where were you?"

"They were deeply wrapped up in the affairs of Potter, ensuring that he didn't die, of course," a nicely sarcastic voice said from behind them, loud enough to carry.

"Professor Snape!" every Slytherin in the room nodded in recognition of their house head, and Ginny felt relieved--the Slytherin professor, flanked by Sinistra and Vector...why was _Vector_ there? ...behind them, Draco, Blaise and Casca. Warrington alone could cause enough distraction to get her out of the interrogation chair, with _all_ of them...?

"Professor Snape," Hermione frowned uncomfortably under the gaze of McGonagall no doubt wanting to know just why the Slytherin was there. "Your presence isn't necessary, Ginny's not undergoing a trial."

"Of course she's not. You usually torture the witch for days on end before you try her and burn her... at least, I believe that's how it goes. My knowledge of Muggle customs is not so extensive as it could be."

"Severus! That kind of remark is _completely_ uncalled-for!" Professor Dumbledore spoke for the first time since Ginny had arrived, looking quite disgusted with the man he had appointed head of house Slytherin.

"My apologies, headmaster. I should know better than to make a judgement based purely on a thousand-odd years of closely documented history. Next time I will presume that Miss Granger acts with the most noble of intentions with thought for her fellow witch." Professor Snape's look remained impassive, although Blaise, Sinistra and Vector all had to act quickly to hide their smiles, Draco coughing to cover a rude snicker.

"Your prejudiced nature aside, Severus, perhaps we should cut to the heart of the matter. What have you done to make Virginia Weasley run away from Gryffindor?"

Ginny was stunned a moment, and her fellow Slytherins' ire was even more swiftly roused than hers, a chorus of voices rising to claim that that wasn't fair, Professor Snape had done nothing wrong, and that Dumbledore was a stupid old bastard.

"Prudence, it might be an idea for you to not speak your mind in quite such succinct terms at this moment. Remember that for which you were named," Professor Snape chided softly, moving to stand behind Ginny's chair as Julia and Osiris stepped aside and gave him room. "Headmaster, I have done absolutely _nothing_ to lure Virginia to the snake house. The only responsibility I can claim is having signed the required paperwork as dictated by Mrs. Malfoy to Blaise--paperwork that, as you know, has the support of two notable members of Slytherin house, a prefect _and_ the head boy, in addition to Emeryth's sponsorship claim."

"You are aware that this sort of thing should not, strictly, even be _legal_ any more?"

"But why, Headmaster? You were so quick to approve when Vinnie made a habit of washing Lockhart's hair for him in his time here."

"Such a stupid name he chose...That is because, Severus, Walden washed Gilderoy's hair in the _toilet,_" Dumbledore gave Professor Snape a sorrowful glance.

"I'm well aware." Professor Snape glanced back toward the Slytherin and Ravenclaw professors he had brought with him, nodding for them to come forward. "Perhaps we should move on and attempt to get this entire debacle over and done with. Virginia came to me with supporting Slytherins and the correct documentation because she has been the victim of unwanted attention from _Miss_ Granger owing to her choice of friends. I had noticed some of said unwanted attention but I was not then at liberty to intervene. My esteemed colleagues Professors Sinistra and Vector had also noticed that things were amiss with Virginia, but as you made it _blindingly_ obvious that Slytherins and sympathisers were _not_ to interfere with sweet and innocent Gryffindors unless said Gryffindors were caught blatantly breaking school rules, we could not act."

"Much as we were tempted to and simply blame it on obscure school rules that haven't been followed for six hundred years, but were dragged out of the records room by Irma at the beginning of this year," Vector added, clasping her hands behind her back in the perfect picture of innocence that almost had Ginny believing her, despite Ginny's years of employing just such a posture and expression.

"It makes no _sense_," Professor McGonagall spoke up, shaking her head. "Ginny, _why_ would you do this? And you Slytherins, why would you take her? Her family has been Gryffindor since Godric ran this school, I don't know why you'd think she could ever be happy with you! And, and, you hate Gryffindors!"

In her peripheral vision she could see Casca deciding to take _this_ question, the head boy taking a few steps to kneel before McGonagall and pat her consolingly on the knee. "Well," the boy began, "it's really quite simple. She and Emeryth are shagging like rabbits, and she's not nearly so Gryffindor-suited as you might think. Plus, we don't hate _all_ Gryffindors, not even those that hate us. Generally we're filled with apathy towards them. Ginny's the first Gryffindor we've found, though, that doesn't _suck_. In the wrong way," Casca paused, a wicked grin spreading over his face. "But, oh, Minnie, the stories we've heard about your sucking days..."

McGonagall's response was an emphatically appalled kick aimed right at Casca's head, but the boy wasn't a Slytherin Chaser without reason, having scrambled back in time to be hiding nonchalantly behind Snape as McGonagall's boot passed through the air where his head had been.

Dumbledore frowned. "Enough, all of you! This disgraceful behaviour--Minerva, I'm surprised at _you._"

"Sorry, professor," Casca snickered from behind the safety of Professor Snape. "It's not like I _know,_ it's just written in the Slytherin loos and signed by Tom Riddle." Almost as an afterthought, he added "He said you were really good, you know."

Ginny bit Emeryth's shoulder to stifle her giggles as McGonagall looked flustered. She knew _her_ Tom hadn't had anything to do with McGonagall, but that didn't mean that his other self hadn't done disturbing things with the woman...and it would be something interesting to tell Tom on his return. "Oh. Ahem. Well, then." The Gryffindor head of house glanced down and then looked up again. "Let's move on, shall we? Virginia, were you _truly_ not happy in Gryffindor?"

"I wasn't," Ginny murmured, intentionally pitching her voice soft so they had to expend extra effort listening to her and would thus heed her more than they would ordinarily. "You said, when I came here, that my house would be like my family...actually, you were right there. They ignored me just as much as family do, if you don't count Bill, Charlie or Percy. Slytherins are nicer t'me--hell, most of them were nicer to me in my second year than the _Gryffindors_ were. At least they didn't tease me about being a stupid child."

"Y...you should have come to me and told me about it," McGonagall seemed abashed, perhaps a little remorseful. "If I had known--"

"I'd have been teased for being a stupid child _and _got a thumping for being a nark. No, thank you."

"Well...tell me who the worst ones were. It's not too late to punish them for their petty cruelty," McGonagall said briskly, ignoring the startled gazes that both Hermione and Dumbledore were giving her.

"It's not an issue any more," Emeryth gestured vaguely towards where Casca stood, having moved out from behind Snape when it became apparent that McGonagall wasn't going to try and kick him in the head again. "I paid him and Millicent a galleon and a bag of green Slithering Snakes each to thump every Gryffindor in Ginny's year except for Colin and Will, who were fairly oblivious to politics and hadn't bothered to hurt her feelings."

"I'd like to note that I accepted that payment _long_ before I became a prefect, and thus cannot be held accountable for my actions."

"Held accountable? What on earth are you talking about, Warrington? Don't you know that you've been given a position of authority specifically for you to use and abuse it as you see fit?" Sinistra murmured under her breath with a glance to Casca's feet, noting with a glimmer of pride that he was wearing the gorilla-feet slippers she had purchased for the Slytherin Quidditch team. "Before I forget, help yourself to an extra bottle from the cellars. Nice performance at breakfast, or so Vic told me."

Hermione glowered around at the entire room save for Dumbledore, forgetting herself--she was forgetting herself, the arrogant Mudblood bitch, she _dared_ to glare at them as though she was their equal, hardly cowed by the uncaring looks she received from the Slytherins and Ravenclaw, taking McGonagall's lack of attention to be approval. "All right, fine, if you're happy to let her fester in the snakepit--what about what she did to Ron?"

"What did I do to Ron?" Ginny asked lightly, raising her eyebrows in a look of puzzlement that made her fellow Slytherins avert their eyes lest they betray the fact that they, at least, knew she had to be acting. "Ron? Did I hurt you?"

"Of course not!" Ron protested enthusiastically, shaking his head. "I don't think you'd have had the time, anyway. You've got a girlfriend and all _sorts_ of new friends now, you don't have time for me."

Hermione gaped, pointing an accusing finger at Ginny only to pull it back when Emeryth snapped her teeth at the Gryffindor, despite the wide gap between them. "She's bespelled him! He was suspicious of her, and she--she--"

"Miss Granger," McGonagall patted Hermione's shoulder consolingly. "I checked myself for any signs of enchantment, and whilst I think it's quite possible he's taken a bludger to the head at a practice, there's no signs of recently-worked magic on him that _I_ can see." Hermione opened her mouth to argue again, but closed it again quickly when McGonagall added "You _do_ trust my judgement, do you not?"

"Y...yes, Professor," it was Granger's turn to look abashed as McGonagall turned away from her and looked on Ginny and Emeryth with more forgiving eyes.

"Minerva..." Dumbledore said at last, after long moments had passed. "You've now decided that nothing amiss is going on here beside the treachery of one Gryffindor student having decided that she prefers the company of her sworn enemies?"

"We're not her sworn enemies! She's with _us_ now," Osiris pointed out before any other Slytherin could beat him to it, his expression set almost mutinous as were those of his fellows, Ginny included.

"Professor Dumbledore," Ginny began, aware after a second from peripheral vision and senses that were... other... that Professor Snape was about to say something terribly cutting about Gryffindor sensibilities and prejudices, "I don't see why you're making such a big deal out of this, you or Hermione. Slytherins are just as much a part of this school as any other house is, and so yes, this might come as a terrible shock to you, but I'm _enjoying_ myself with them. In Gryffindor I existed, in Slytherin I live."

"You can't turn your back on four and a half years of your life, Miss Weasley," Dumbledore protested. "The Sorting Hat placed you in Gryffindor for a reason and so we're here until such time as we've resolved the issues you have with your true house, and you feel ready to take your place within it once more."

"Oh, gods," Ginny heard Vector mutter from behind and to the right of her--to Sinistra, probably, because the two seemed to spend their time almost exclusively in each other's company when they were both conscious--the Slytherin teacher was in the habit of waking up in the early afternoon and wandering down to see what the Arithmancy witch was doing--if it was teaching a class, so be it, and Sinistra would more often than not take a seat and help the students disrupt the class until Vector gave up teaching and began pelting her with chalk.

Alternatively, she knew, Vector sometimes made a point of staggering up to the Astronomy tower just after breakfast and doing all sorts of unholy things to the Astronomy witch until the Slytherin gave up and staggered out of bed. It was rather surprising they were still alive, come to think of it. Maybe one got used to sleep deprivation?

"Selene, better send one of your Slythie brats down to the kitchens with a standing order. We're going to be here for years."

"Victoria! You had slipped my mind...but I'm glad you're here. I had thought to discuss Virginia's grades with you most of all--she's made truly startling improvements in her marks over the past few weeks, and I think you ought to be able to prove that alone signifies that she wasn't suffering so terribly in Gryffindor as she claims."

"Professor Dumbledore," Vector stated calmly, "I've absolutely no idea what you're on about. Ginny's _always_ been good at Arithmancy, of late she's simply had another one of those little breakthroughs those who can be mathematically minded have."

"Her marks in every other subject but Muggle Studies have increased, too."

"It can have a catalytic effect."

"Are you lying to me, Victoria?"

Vector, Ginny could see out of the corner of her eye, didn't even assume an innocent look before she stated that she wasn't, she had no reason to.

"Virginia's exceptional skills in Potions aren't without due cause either," Professor Snape said quietly. "I'd like you to recall that she _has_ been working with a Slytherin partner for the last three years, it's _hardly_ as though some of the talent didn't rub off, and I believe she has a natural aptitude for the more complex arts and sciences."

They were covering for her. It suddenly became blindingly obvious--they had _all_ come up to Dumbledore's office to defend her and cover for her, deliberately flouting his unspoken command that she alone was to enter the lion's cage. Potential allies were almost literally crawling out of the woodwork around her, all with varied degrees of interest and loyalty--she'd won a greater part of House Slytherin to her side the night before with the ripples of the intrigue that centred around her, yet more to her this morning when Dumbledore had so pointedly attacked her and Emeryth in his breakfast lecture, and the Ravenclaws had looked something akin to impressed once one got past Cho and her friends. Some of the Hufflepuffs, she recalled dimly, had looked quite intrigued--and there were a few in her old house who she wouldn't mind luring into the darkness.

So many useful little witches and wizards at this place--it _was_ the best place to organise a tactical strike from. The Ministry, as a place to start, had _nothing_ on the school...not when the entire next generation of Wizarding Britain, Ireland, Scotland and Wales had to walk through these halls for seven years before they would be 'allowed' to work their magic.

"Binns, too, has noticed a remarkable change in her dedication to her work--and all three of you have slept through his many lectures, you _can't_ deny that there is nothing abnormal about that," Dumbledore pointed out, fixing his beady eyes on Ginny, watching to see her reaction to his every word.

"Stimulants," Ginny answered him with maddening calm, letting the edge of ire rising in her be soothed by Emeryth's fingertips stroking her hair as she ransacked her memories, Tom's memories, for a follow-up. "They can be purchased at Dervish's. Grind them up in Potions class, throw in with dilute Arnica and Common Thornapple extract, simmer for four minutes. Keeps you conscious all day."

"I told you that Virginia had an aptitude for Potions," Professor Snape murmured from behind her back, resting a hand on her shoulder. She understood the message he couldn't state aloud, wrap it up, wrap it up, get out before she was tricked into saying too much. "Are there any other false accusations you or Miss Granger would care to level at her, headmaster, or might we be permitted to leave once we've completed the several dozen forms that need to be registered with the Ministry denouncing Virginia to be a threat, complete with a listing of her weaknesses and strengths? You might have to wait a few days to complete her psychological profile given that the psychwitches from St. Mungo's require four days notice."

"That's not a problem, Severus," Dumbledore smiled. "Had you forgotten? Sibyll gained her license twelve years ago. True, it expired two years ago, but that doesn't detract from the fact that she _was_ capable of doing it and might still be."

McGonagall had risen from her seat and slipped away to the racks of scrolls behind Dumbledore, carefully selecting pieces of parchment from various cubby-holes and plucking a handful of quills from the headmaster's desk, handing them out to Casca, Ginny, Emeryth and Professor Snape. "The rest of you aren't necessary for the moment--" she said as she passed Vector, Sinistra, Blaise and Draco, "So you may as well go down to your next classes, especially you, Victoria--you're supposed to be a teacher, aren't you?"

"So I've been accused," Victoria nodded. "But I have time to stay and watch the fireworks. Padma knows to check by my classroom in the morning, and take over if I'm not there."

"Thank you, Victoria, for reminding me--Draco, one of your housemates will fill you in on what you're missing--would you be so kind as to go to Potions now without me? You may teach the class until such time as I arrive," Professor Snape murmured to the blond boy as he began filling out the declaration he had been given by McGonagall.

"Yes, sir," Draco nodded, winking at Ginny as he pointed imperiously towards her brother and Granger. "You two, get to class now, or it'll be ten points from each of you!"

Granger threw a pleading glance to McGonagall, only to have her head of house nod and say with genuine enthusiasm "Yes, yes. Go, I can't let you miss out on your classes any longer."

Ron looked a little lost himself, not quite comprehending the fast pace at which they were being hurried out of Dumbledore's office. "Ron," Emeryth called to him as she scribbled her way through her own form that had to be filled out to Ministry satisfaction, detailing her reasons for sponsoring Ginny in Slytherin. Once Ginny compensated for angle and the appalling state of Emeryth's handwriting--deliberately messy, to make the Ministry work at it--she read 'Because she's a good shag' and couldn't help but giggle. "You'll go to Potions and be good, won't you? Ginny would be _really_ upset if you tried to disrupt Draco's class."

"Oh. Oh, yeah." Ron nodded and set off before Malfoy with a firm resolve, as Hermione stared in abject outrage and Draco smirked.

"There's nothing wrong with him, see? He's just a little slow." Emeryth pointed out with a wave in the direction of the door, turning back to her statement with no further thought shown for those that departed.

"You manipulative--" Hermione's snarl was cut off abruptly as Vector and Sinistra pitched her out of the room to the approval of all Slytherins inside, their actions unnoticed by McGonagall who was chuckling over something to herself and couldn't care less. Dumbledore had glared at them but they had pleaded innocently that they were aiding her to get to class--after all, Dumbledore wouldn't like it if the witch had lost Gryffindor _more_ points, would he?

"Virginia--you understand what we're doing now, do you not?" Professor Snape inquired from beside her chair as he knelt and rested the parchments he held on the armrest that she and Emeryth weren't leaning on. "Emeryth would have told you, I'm sure, about the files the Ministry began collecting on all Slytherin students as of last year--psychological profiling, family background, a record of every misdemeanour they've been caught in the act of..."

"She went on about it for an hour or so last March, yes," Ginny answered as she sketched a little picture of herself giving the fingers to whoever read her declaration of intent, "and isn't it good to see that the moral majority's just as capable of blatant stereotyping and prejudice as they claim we are?"

Professor Snape graced her with a smile, nodding and murmuring "Of course, they're just doing it for your own safety and well-being, they tell me. They want to _help_ us. It was Professor Dumbledore's idea, after all, and you know he only acts for the good of the _entire_ school."

"Of course!" Ginny smiled sweetly at the watching Dumbledore. "I'll remember his touching concern, believe me." And oh, she would. She would remember everything for when Tom returned and she took her place, when he returned and they casually murdered everyone who irritated them in the slightest. It wasn't as though they really mattered, after all... they weren't important to _her._

_

* * *

_

"Virginia Weasley. You've met her?" Tom asked quietly as he set down his cup, his hands returning to stroke the young kneazle named Lionsbane who flat-out refused to move from his lap.

"Of course. Delightful girl. Her wand chose her when she was...let me see. Her brother Percy was picking his first wand and one happened to fall from the shelves, the box opened, and it rolled toward her. Her mother was horrified and slapped the girl for playing with 'things she shouldn't'," Ollivander's expression had turned from amused interest at the mention of Virginia to a carefully-controlled look of detachment, although a flicker of quickly-hidden anger showed through at the mention of Molly Weasley.

He didn't have to ask why Ollivander found the Weasley matriarch distasteful--Slytherins, Ravenclaw purebloods... hell, _Hufflepuffs_ found the very thought of domestic violence repulsive: one might merrily and with gay abandon slaughter one's enemies with nary a thought nor care, but then one came home to their loving family for a blissful respite from the destructive chaos that waited outside their estate. A Slytherin might be somewhat cold, somewhat distant to their family depending on the situation...but unasked-for violence was _never_ acceptable behaviour.

Even if blood loyalty--when one had blood worth loyalty to--wasn't everything, to alienate one's family, to wilfully initiate a tension in one's family was just _stupid._

Of course, if anyone was going to do something that ranked so high on the scale of sheer and utter lunacy, it _would_ be a Gryffindor born. They had no grasp of the concept that honey caught more flies than vinegar, and likewise thought more often than not that the perspective one got through their pretty rose-tinted spectacles was _everyone's_ perspective, Slytherins, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs simply had to be shown the light and they would renounce their shades of green, blue and yellow to embrace the red. It was a mistake that had cost them dearly in the past, and would continue to do so.

"I saved the wand for her, of course. Five years later she returned to collect. Her mother thought a new wand an unnecessary expense for a girl and donated two galleons. Her brother contributed all his savings, and she got her wand." Ollivander smiled, continuing "It was spoiled for any other witch after choosing her, so I lowered the price to seven galleons."

"And then you slipped a galleon back to Virginia," Tom fought to hide his amusement. "She told me that night. Her mother didn't find out."

"Oh, good. She--told you that night?"

"Of course," he smirked now. Despite Ollivander's high intellect and historical knowledge, there remained a few things the man had not yet figured out. "I was Virginia's only confidante her first year of Hogwarts. The... Potter brat killed me at the end of that first year."

"And yet you live again, back in perfect health... or better."

"Virginia brought me back from the dead."

"Seventh-born daughter of a seventh daughter," Ollivander commented lightly, his old eyes gleaming with interest as he alluded to Virginia's family history, enlightening Tom with the knowledge that despite the Weasley woman's many faults, she was an unwitting half-step toward the deeper power Virginia held. "That and... perhaps more?"

"Witch." A fair trade of information, mere confirmation of what Ollivander had already hinted at knowing, what the man deeply suspected and could find out himself if he had to--but not without risk to the fragile safety Virginia currently had in the low number of people who could know or could think what she was. "Witch-in-potentia when I first met her... Witch now."

"Did you, ah, awaken her?" Ollivander read Tom's expression well, and rolled his eyes. "I do _not_ mean it with that implication!"

"Much of it was her own doing. I was merely a catalyst, or perhaps a goal."

The old man sighed with genuine relief at that, all dirty thoughts evidently quite faded from his mind, which obviously walked at fevered pace as he went on, "That's good to know. You may be able to restrain her if no one else can. Witch is...sometimes passionate."

"To what extent?" He was now speaking with knowledge about the subject, he wouldn't have been nearly so sure in tone if he hadn't meant it.

"Lady Grey very nearly destroyed the world before she went to the block." The man nodded once at Tom's expression of mild shock. "My father was witness. He went--first to convince her to flee the tower. She refused, and in going willing she held off a Great Hunt for ten, maybe eleven years. She was promised fifty, but of course--the Muggles lied."

"Lady Grey...Ravenclaw house's Grey Lady...was Witch?" Witch were virtually crawling out of the woodwork of history, more than he had expected--more than he had hoped. He'd gained glimpses of Witch nature in his researches--deep in the restricted section's heyday, when Irma Pince--Ravenclaw prefect, a year younger than he--had taken over librarian duty at the demise of Mr. Ceirwan. He suspected dear Irma of poison, but didn't mention it. She in turn had suspected him of carrying out illicit research, but she had returned the favour and somehow forgotten to mention his time there to that old git, Dumbledore. Ginny had been to the restricted section in her first year for him, but it had been sadly decimated at the whims of the Gryffindorian authority... still, some few of the books with a bare mention of Witch in them still remained...

"She could have been. If she had taken the mantle of Witch instead of sacrificing herself for her people and dying at the treacherous hands of her Muggle kin..." Ollivander trailed off to shrug helplessly. "She could have been great. Could have taken her place with the likes of Morrighan, Circe, Rowena, Helga. Her loss is the world's...and so, Mr. Riddle," he paused for effect, to underline the very seriousness of his words, "I'm no expert in Witch nature, Witch lore, but you should find your lady a teacher. Soon."

* * *

"Virginia?" Professor Snape caught her attention as she and Emeryth started toward Arithmancy, and she looked back to see her head of house standing beside Professors Sinistra and Vector.. "Professor Vector excuses you from Arithmancy today, given that Miss Patil has already taught half the lesson and you are quite capable of catching up if you're not past the current point in the curriculum." 

She halted, as did Emeryth, as did the six Slytherins drafted to protect her from any particularly daring Gryffindors. "Professor?"

"You will accompany myself and my fellow teachers to the Astronomy tower, which will--at this time--be empty provided that no foolish Gryffindors are attempting to tryst in Selene's domain," Professor Snape was silent a moment as he gazed over the assembled teens. "Emeryth may accompany you if she so wishes. Everyone else, go to class and tender my apologies to your professors. My ..._sincere_ apologies. The reason for your tardiness may be explained succinctly if you believe it will smooth your late entrance."

The six Slytherins summarily dismissed nodded their heads in respect and acknowledgement, peeling off in four different directions to leave herself, Emeryth and the three professors in the hall. "D'you want me to stay?" Emeryth asked uncertainly, the fragment of doubt in her voice fading out at Ginny's brisk nod. "Oh, good."

"Vic, my lovely," Professor Sinistra murmured as they entered the sitting-room area of her suite, closing the door behind herself, "A complete block, lest menacingly twinkly eyes are watching?"

"No worries," Vector assured the other woman as she found a pencil on the table and skipped back to the door to sketch a quick line of numbers, symbols and runes above the doorway, balancing carefully on tiptoe to accomplish such a feat, the blonde professor being an inch shorter than Ginny herself. The numbers sparkled and a bronzed tint spread over the walls, the door, the windows, the floor and the ceiling before it faded out. "Anyone watching will see naught but us conversing about an enthralling...ah...project which Virginia and her partner might do in three months time. Astronomy and Arithmancy both, very intellectual, that covers us all with a nice motive for this chat. So, let's get to it."

There were only three chairs in a state fit to be used, Ginny saw as she assessed the room. A fourth chair was half-buried beneath books, scrolls and clothes, and she and Emeryth acted with one thought to squeeze into one armchair, Professor Snape taking the second and Professor Sinistra taking the third. Vector snorted disdainfully at the fourth before perching on the arm of Sinistra's seat.

"Virginia, I'm not going to go into some dreary monologue about how you ought to trust us. That's your decision. We do, however, have one or two questions for you."

"Hex away," she offered, her tone light. While she waited, while Professor Snape pondered the best possible phrasing of his question, searching fingertips found her hand and the chill she felt at her impending interrogation--less dangerous than her previous; Slytherins and Ravenclaw only, more dangerous; Slytherins were likely to come closer to truth--melted away for the moment.

Melted only to return with reinforcements. "Draco admitted, under our questioning, to giving you a book. Something of a family heirloom. One of a kind, you might say. Do you still have this book?"

She tensed, and Emeryth held back a wince at the force exerted on her fingers, squeezing back for just a second both as a reminder that her hand was still there and as a soothing gesture. "The book is no longer in my possession," she admitted slowly, stalling for time.

Professor Snape--and by extension Professors Sinistra and Vector, the latter of which pair was now sitting in the lap of the former quite comfortably--they _knew_ she had had the diary in the recent keeping. His name had not been mentioned, but it didn't need to be. They were all Slytherins or Ravenclaws, they didn't need beating about the head with a big stick to make a few observations that were none too difficult.

She had not been cautious enough, she had not been subtle enough. During the little tug-o-war she and Tom had engaged in, she had not covered her tracks well enough, and after...Emeryth had helped her as much as was witchly possible, but _she_ had been...careless. Not as heedful as she could have been.

"Victoria, Selene and I suspect that you have somehow freed the shade of Tom Riddle from his diary."

'Oh, shit' didn't even begin to cover her first thought. Think clearly, she had to think clearly. She could possibly bullshit her way out--even if Professor Snape resorted to veritaserum. Tom had told her in her first year that a pathological liar could avoid telling the truth if they believed wholly that their lies were true, she _could_ make herself believe a convincing story, if she had a moment to plot a likely scenario... perhaps...

The three professors were still awaiting her answers, curiosity writ large in their avid expressions, but no condemnation despite their strong suspicions. A hint of impatience from Vector, but that had always been the Arithmancy witch's way, unwavering but polite curiosity from Sinistra who had learnt a kind of patience from the stars themselves--and Professor Snape watching, always watching. He could watch until the end of the world if her answer was not forthcoming before that time.

Did she dare tell? Did Tom trust her judgement truly? He had said he trusted her in regards to Em--a halfgrown witch, quite the far cry from the adult wizard and witches before her.

Would he trust her judgement in this matter?

Would she trust her own?

"Yes," the word fell from her lips like lead, too late to change her mind, too late to deny, and though the thought did strike that she might command them as she had her brother, subverting their wills to her own, she was oddly loathe to do such a thing.

She had felt no real guilt when she had effectively grabbed Ron by the ears and shaken him so hard she broke his brain, and Ron was blood-family. She should feel less concern now, not _more._

"Did you return him as a shade or in mortal form?" Professor Snape asked, the hint of formality in his tone pulling her up short and causing her to wait a moment, just a second while the words came to her.

"I begged Draco for the diary to return to my hands, I bled for Tom, life's blood and heart's blood, and through my blood--through my magic--he was cast into flesh." The very ostentatious tone of her words struck Ginny as she stopped, shrugged a little ashamedly, finished. "Theend."

"Hardly the end, Virginia," Professor Snape said after long moments passed. "You're telling us that we have a young Tom Riddle back--living, breathing and in a more sound mind than Lord Voldemort. As powerful as he was in his late teen years...or perhaps more?"

"I'm Witch," she admitted, her fingers tightening around Emeryth's hand still safe within her grasp. "I support him to the extent of my power. I, ah, also don't yet know my limits...if I have any...and Em's with me in this."

"Emeryth?" Professor Vector asked softly, her usually-light eyes dark as she watched both girls. "Are you?"

Emeryth nodded firmly, Ginny saw, biting her lip before she spoke. "I am. Gin's...whatever she wants, I want for her. I don't mind being second to...well, not to him. Anyone else would be in their grave by now, but," she smiled sweetly, almost too sweetly for the Slytherin she was, "I'll be content. Second still ranks."

'No!' the thought not her own sparkled vibrantly in her mind, no less emphatic for all that it was no more than a whisper. 'Not second,' the thought continued, a tangle of confusion and calm that clawed inside Emeryth's mind, twisting and burning like ice-fire... _like Ginny._

'Not?' she thought questioningly, curiosity creeping through her.

* * *

'Not!' Ginny thought, confirming that she was really hearing the older girl, that if the voices still meant madness it wasn't hers alone. 'There's no first nor second in my mind,' the thought reassured her, Ginny's eyes shining blue as her free hand found Emeryth's, the additional skin-on-skin contact strengthening the mental touch. 'Both equal,' Ginny promised with a firm kiss, the tone and the nuance of the words showing her just how much Ginny meant it, letting her _feel_ it. 

Vector was still watching her intently, a smile curving the blonde's lips before she shook her head as Emeryth and Ginny drew back for breath with the tacit promise to continue the mental exploration at a later date.

"Young love," Vector murmured, unaware of their private words. "Sel?" she asked, tracing short fingernails down Professor Sinistra's neck in a gesture of obvious affection. "Were we ever that young?"

"Vic, darling, look at your everyday behaviour. You're thirteen." At Vector's outraged look, Sinistra smiled guilelessly, tweaking her nose. "On your _best_ days."

"Hmmph. That's beside the point," Vector proclaimed, turning back to where she and Ginny sat. "Point is, what are you three going to do? Take over the world?"

"Of course," Ginny replied from beside her, soft assurance, confidence in that voice, sending a little ripple of excitement through her that doubled when Ginny's hand rested on her knee, the contact forming another conduit for a thought to hit her between the eyes, Ginny telling her privately 'I'll fill you in tonight.'

"Oh, will you?" she whispered aloud, enjoying the hint of confusion on the faces of the teachers. Confused that she would contradict Ginny, or somewhat aware of the fact that unspoken communication must be going on between them?

The look on Vector's face as she brushed a few strands of hair from her eyes, as she surreptitiously pressed at her left temple indicated the latter, judging by what she'd read of what Ravenclaw scholars termed the 'misplaced' arts of the mind. They weren't lost, weren't forgotten, it was just that almost everyone was _incapable._ That, or those few that were capable weren't talking about it. "I'll hold that to you tonight, Ginny _dear_."

"Better not be the only thing you hold to me," Ginny quipped, her cheer infecting Emeryth as she fought to remain serious. The three professors were on to them and she was only half in the game as it was, Ginny was more powerful than she'd thought remotely possible, and now _she_ had to cover them as best she could.

Professors Vector and Sinistra were good sorts, though, and had both saved her from Gryffindor-given detentions at times when she'd been sure she was sunk, Sinistra even saving her retroactively at one point by swearing black and blue that the cigarette Emeryth had been caught with she had just been _holding_ for the Astronomy professor.

Hagrid had been none too pleased about Sinistra's intervention, but the teacher had brought up several drunken incidences of bestiality that caused the filthy-blooded half-giant to back down, and fast. Sinistra was... could be... safe.

Vector had let her bludge cigarettes when she'd run out after Blaise had raided--hell, Vector had bought for her, Apparating to the nearest Muggle town when Hogsmeade was out of her favoured brand, since she was going shopping anyway. The professor was none too Gryffindor-friendly either, unlike the head of Ravenclaw who was everyone's friend... everything indicated that this Ravenclaw was in bed with Slytherin, probably so far as to count as honorary.

And Professor Snape... no matter what his past history entailed, even the Slytherins probably didn't know the half of it, but _he_ had their best interests at heart just as much as his predecessor. Even if he wouldn't help them as fully as he could, he would not hinder.

"Are any of you," she nodded to the professors, "in allegiance to another? Past familia," she narrowed the field of her question for greater precision as it occurred to her, for very few proper Slytherins and Ravenclaws would _not_ be in with their immediate family--it would take a very, very strong reason for them to bite the hand that fed them, "true allegiance without intent to betray?"

The chances of them lying in answer if they _were_, of course, was high--but Ginny ought be able to tell lie from truth even if she couldn't--Ginny could read minds, oh _fuck_, she'd spot every single dirty perverted thought Emeryth had ever had, she'd find out about that night with Luc at the end of last year when Ginny had finally agreed to go out with Potter, the night that had ended in absolute disaster pure and simple, the night when Emeryth had stupidly said one wrong word...

If she knew, she knew. Bit late to avoid it now, Emeryth could hardly unthink and undo the past.

"Vic and I are together," Sinistra admitted pleasantly enough, one hand tangled in Vector's hair so the other woman couldn't escape her, "but we've no other allegiances; we signed up to teach here, not to join Dumbledore's cause. Severus, on the other hand..."

"Is currently playing two sides--Dumbledore and Voldemort--against each other," Professor Snape finished for Sinistra, guessing with ease why she was asking, "Realistically, I need a safe out. Both of them are too involved in their little war, both of them are entirely too detached from reality for my tastes. Virginia, would it be a safe assessment to say that Mr. Riddle has no intention of joining forces with his elder self, and does not sympathise with..." he didn't even attempt to hide his disgust at Dumbledore now, dropping the pretence of deferring to the old man's 'wisdom', "Dumbledore and his _noble _wizards?"

"Not in this lifetime or the next," Ginny murmured. "Professor Snape?" her tone changed, power lacing her voice as she straightened in her seat. "What likelihood that their argument will have lethal repercussions for you?"

"Unavoidable," Professor Snape's voice was grave, his countenance matching, and he tapped once, twice on the arm of his chair--a nervous gesture, as much of one as a master of potions would allow himself. "Lord Voldemort is, I think, well aware that I'm a counterspy. Potter happened to let that slip at the beginning of last year. I live yet on his sufferance, he uses me to misinform Dumbledore as much as possible. Dumbledore twigged to this fact a month ago. He's trying to push Selene into play as Slytherin head so I can be retired in a little...accident. Martyr for the cause, you know."

Funnily enough, she for one was unsurprised. The only good Slytherin was a dead Slytherin, after all, her mother had heard words to that effect when the Ministry had 'tightened security' and incidentally fired every Slytherin and half the Ravenclaws, some of whom were actually financially dependent on their jobs and not just working to keep their fingers in each pie that came along.

Fired with absolutely no notice on arrival at work, it had been a mad scramble at home and at the Harpies' bank; every fired Slytherin and Ravenclaw of means, and the handful of Hufflepuffs who had resigned in disgust with loyalty towards their fired research partners or fellow Aurors, all of them had thrown whatever they had in loose change (from her mother, something in the range of three thousand Galleons) into a need account. The Harpies were trusted far more than goblins would be to distribute the money to those requiring it, and thus every family had managed to hold its head high in society despite the way the Ministry had attempted to cripple them.

Slytherins were so scorned on grounds of what they had been at _eleven_, what a subsequent seven years of discrimination had made them, and yet Gryffindors still wondered why they chose to keep house business just that--why they refused to rat on their peers and would have rathered snort razorblades than run to Dumbledore, all "Professor! Professor! Draco's dad is blowing the Dark Lord!" or something equally personal.

"Swear to me," Ginny said quietly, the offer coming slowly, "Swear to our side, Professor, and I promise no harm will come to you."

* * *

"...no harm will come to you," Virginia held out one hand to him, palm upmost, her eyes shining a feverish blue with the vivacity of Witch showing through the pale girl, her hair like dark fire and her skin pale, almost translucent. 

Under ordinary circumstances he would not _consider_ trusting the word of a Weasley--any Weasley, but he would vouch at that moment that _this_ one was changeling, was other to what the rest of her family was or ever could be.

Truth be told he hadn't at all suspected Virginia capable of controlling, restraining Riddle, nor of having the will to be anything but a pawn... then, of course, she had said that word. Witch. her voice had resonated truth, and he hadn't missed Victoria's little gasp when the girl had admitted it, either. Victoria had confessed to being Witch-Insidiator when they had been drunkenly arguing about the sexism inherent in Euro-centric wizarding society after the rise of Muggle Christianity, and she'd pointed out Sinistra as another.

Not that they were the first he'd come across, of course.

When he'd visited Bellatrix in Azkaban, on one of the rare occasions when she let some madness fall away to appear almost lucid and thus capable of visitors...when the Dementors had retreated out of hearing range, Bella had admitted as much about herself, which made him suspect that Narcissa was another.

Bella had also explained what kind of physical and mental stimuli was necessary to actually _become_ Witch...if Virginia had passed through that and remained in shouting distance of sane, any promise she made would be worth listening to.

The fact that he would escape the snares coiling about him wasn't lost on him, either.

Feeling just a little odd promising his allegiance to a girl twenty-four years his junior, Severus reached out a hand to cover Ginny's and paused, for a second lost on words appropriate to the moment.

"We're not that caught on formality," Emeryth chided after a heartbeat's time. "A simple 'fuck' will suffice."

A grin flickered on Ginny's face before being smothered by her serious expression, but she didn't nay say Emeryth's hint, leaving him to assume the younger Slytherin meant every word.

"Fuck, then," he swore.

"Accepted," Ginny said, covering his hand with her other and pressing lightly, raising that hand after a moment and leaning across the coffee-table with one knee on the polished mahogany to reach with unshaking fingertips, touching his brow and allowing the words to flow through from her subconscious. "No harm shall befall you by earth, air, fire or water. No hex, no curse, no spell and no poison. No blade and no rope." Then, as though she realised the grand scale she spoke on--as though there was just a touch of shame at it--she drew back again, breaking their contact.

With that loss her vow snapped into place, geas, unbreakable wards spinning around his mind and body, their touch electric on his skin but refreshing as a cool breeze. All the stress, all the tension and the worry he had carried years deep was driven away, soothing him to a degree he'd not imagined possible. He...he felt free for the very first time without a single shadow not his own, and it was an invigorating experience.

Thank you, Virginia... Emeryth. I'll be... indisposed for the next hour or so. You'll be able to find me after lunch if you..." A thought occurred to him, and he shook his head to negate his previous sentence. "You'll be able to find me when and wherever you will, but I trust to your Slytherin sense of discretion. Victoria, Selene, can I trust you to finish business without me?"

He actually grinned at Selene's cheerful suggestion he fuck off, and with a swift bow to Virginia he left, scaring Gryffindors and the more feeble Hufflepuffs with the deranged look in his eyes as he hurried toward the dungeons.

"That...took it out of me," Ginny said quietly, one languid brush of her hand pushing back the long red curls that had fallen into her eyes. She had acted purely on instinct after Professor Snape had mentioned the likely end-result of the scenario he was trapped in, she had probably expended needless energy when if she had stopped, if she had thought, she would have found a better way to do it than pure, not-quite-focused magic--but then she didn't feel wrong for doing so, it was one of the wisest moves she'd made so far.

Professor Snape _knew_ what was happening in the current power-plays, probably the very best source of information short of Dumbledore or Voldemort, and she doubted either of them would be predisposed toward helping herself and Tom in any way more strenuous than finding a very short pier for them to take a walk off.

That and she found when she examined her thoughts, she genuinely liked _and_ respected Professor Snape. He held a job that many others would have faltered at in the current situation, and despite his scorn of most Gryffindors he had not been so harsh to her, even when she was in the reviled Lions' den herself. His treatment to the Slytherins was perfectly fair, on the other hand. He did try to balance the scales, and for that...

"Y'did well," Professor Vector told her, inclining her head in the direction of the door. "You've pulled him from the gallows."

"And you seem like between you--you two and Riddle--you just might succeed," Sinistra added, shifting her weight to sit more comfortably since Vector showed no intent of taking the chair vacated by Professor Snape, "if, that is, you're planning to push for a more rational society along the lines of what the first Lord Voldemort had planned before he became a raving loony."

"S'pretty much it," she admitted, raising Emeryth's hand a moment to indicate to the girl. "The main thing holding us back at the moment is that Tom's missed fifty-five years of social and political changes--and you must know that my family is pro-Muggle to such a point that mentally...well, they're as clueless as a first-year Mudblood. Luckily I've got Em, whom I'm sure I can con into helping me."

"Conning's not necessary." Emeryth had already taken it for granted that all her skills and knowledge would be used ruthlessly in their bid for global domination, which saved time and effort on her part, on Emeryth's, it was best for everyone that way.

"You've got a fair few details to work out yet, but,"

"If you think you could put up with us..."

"We'd quite like to join you," they finished in unison.

Ginny and Emeryth both blinked in impressed amusement at the way Sinistra and Vector interwove their words, picking up this thread or that alone and finishing with a synchronicity that spoke of a long friendship--and everything _else_ they'd confessed to--that they seemed to revel in. "I... I, we would be pleased to have you," Ginny managed after a minute, finding the recruiting business a great deal easier than she had thought it would be. "Swear?"

"Cagar," Sinistra said with a little grin, and Vector tsked at the dark-haired witch's dirty mouth--cagar... if that was from a Latin root, she'd just said something about the after-product of defecating...

Not to be outdone, or not caring if she was outdone, Vector sighed and patted Sinistra's shoulder. "Bollocks, then."

"Accepted," Ginny could only say with a shake of her head and a wry sideways glance to Emeryth. Sinistra had been right when she said Vector was thirteen, she'd seen more maturity from the stupid first-year Gryffindors she'd shepherded for months.

"Lest you think you're getting the worse side of the deal, I might as well mention that Selene and I both have Witch-potential," Vector commented after a minute or so of silence. "We weren't pushed to the point that we're actually Witch, but we're a tiny bit more powerful than the usual lot, so..."

"So I didn't recognise it," Ginny could almost have kicked herself as she read the signs, the little crackle of power around both professors, easily visible in Witchsight. "If it was really necessary, you could become Witch?"

Sinistra shook her head, then shrugged uncertainly. "Well, we didn't fancy pushing it because with unlimited power usually comes lunacy, but if the situation ever arose that we _had_ to, we probably would."

"That's...good enough, I guess. More than I'd anticipated. Thank you, Professor Sinistra--Professor Vector." Ginny bit her lip, and tucked away the comment about lunacy for further thought at another time.

"Quite all right," the Astronomy witch murmured graciously. "You two may as well call us Selene and Victoria now, you know. We are aiding and abetting."

"We'll remember that in future," Emeryth said with a little grin, curling an arm around her knees. "Selene, Victoria? D'you think one of you could alibi us for Defence? We've...things to talk about."

Vector glanced at her watch at Emeryth's question, swearing once before she nodded. "Not a problem. Padma's got Arithmancy now so she may as well just teach it, I'll skip along to Lupin's and make your excuses in person--Selene?" Victoria had scrambled to her feet and now turned back to her--Ginny couldn't think of a term suitable to both the situation and the _dignity_ of the teachers, so settled on--'friend', "You want to tag along or have you enough to keep you occupied for now?"

A strange light shone in Selene's violet eyes at the query, something best described as a cheerful murderous rage. "Oh, you wake me up after a pathetic three hours' sleep and now you think you can take off? Fine, _I'm_ going back to bed." Selene stormed off in high dudgeon, slamming her bedroom door behind herself only to open it and peer out again, seeming perfectly calm. "Virginia, Emeryth, don't take this as indicative of our normal behaviour. We're ordinarily _much_ worse. Vic, you think you can get them out of Dark Arts Avoidance for Sissies and tell them a little, then be back within half an hour?"

"Or else?"

"Or else."

"I can do it," Victoria nodded firmly, waving towards the door. "Gin, Em? Let's go inform Lupin that you'll not be attending class today."

They scampered quick enough from Selene's tower, Victoria swiping at the equation above the door to blur them out of working order as she left, closing the door behind herself without explaining her motive.

No explanation was necessary, Ginny found as they raced down the stairs, Victoria giving them a run for their money despite being about twice their age. Dumbledore knew the castle reasonably well, he had to. He was a powerful wizard simply by virtue of his advanced age, even if he was nothing compared to what she would, what she was becoming.

While there were parts of the castle that would remain dead silent to him by nature, Slytherin areas and Ravenclaw areas, probably places claimed by Helga Hufflepuff in fits of paranoia too, any 'common' area couldn't have remained silent or too benign without rousing suspicion.

Victoria explained to them her thoughts on a valid excuse for skipping Defence as they slid down the banisters from the sixth floor to the fifth--an independent research project on the use of Arithmancy in countercurses and wards, one usually handed out to seventh-years too big for their boots--and scribbled them a restricted-section pass as they made a more restrained and demure descent from the fifth to the fourth floor.

Then Victoria halted, waved a hand in the air--and Ginny _saw_ her spell come into being, saw through Witchsight as arithmancy symbols and numbers flew from Victoria's fingertips in a shimmering wash of green and gold light that encircled them, spinning in a gentle pattern that prevented any sound from escaping, prevented anyone from hearing a word they said. It was no spell they would ever find in a book, arithmancy being one of the best crafts for making up spells on the fly and more easily customised than spells from a Latin or Runic base.

It would have made for a fascinating study, and if it wasn't obvious to her that Victoria had drawn a veil of secrecy around them to a purpose she would have lost herself in the numbers then and there.

"We don't commonly discuss this with anyone who hasn't found their own way there yet, but," Victoria glanced from Ginny to Emeryth and back again, "Either of you been to the library yet?"

"Which library?" Ginny asked after a second's consideration. The school library _everyone_ had been to, they'd not have made it to second year without it, so Victoria _couldn't_ have meant that one. Rumour had it that there were private libraries within the labyrinthine mass of tunnels within the school, libraries that had belonged to the founders and not been found since...she might have thought it simply a myth, Ravenclaw students' unattainable paradise, but then she had seen Salazar's office, which hadn't skimped on books. If he was anything to go by...

"Close. Rowena--well, she started Witch library. If you may, if you could someday be Witch, you usually find your way there before you awaken. That's a no, right?"

"I had no idea it existed," she admitted, feeling the fool. "All I know is what Percy told me, and what the...ah...voice dropped in my mind after Tom and I..."

"I didn't know either," Emeryth's confession cheered her for a reason; if her more well-informed friend with a Slytherin heritage stretching back to the times of the founders was as ignorant as she was, it made her own lack less galling, less of a shame. United by ignorance, that was them.

Victoria seemed a bit disturbed by this, to say the least, but she covered remarkably well. "Perhaps not yet time," she said, motioning them to continue downstairs. "Selene and I found each other there when we were twelve, but some in the book didn't find their way until they were seventeen or eighteen."

"The book?" Emeryth questioned, tilting her head to regard Victoria in a way that Ginny thought adorable. "There's more written on Witch than we can decipher from nursery-rhyme and children's books?"

"Much, much more," Victoria told them. "Soon, I'm sure, you'll be taken there. I'd guide you myself but it's not my right."

A month ago she'd have stopped and _demanded_ Victoria take her to this Witch library at once. Of course, a month ago she wouldn't have been on first-name basis with the professor, or known any more of Witch than the most ignorant child. She wouldn't have had the untapped reserves of power she now held at her fingertips, and with that power came, on examination, patience. All things would come to her in time, and a Slytherin knew the... _virtues_ of patience. "We can wait."

"That's good. Rushing things gets you nowhere, after all." Victoria dispelled the arithmancy working around them as they reached the Defence Against Dark Arts classroom, rapping casually on the door and looking in a moment later. "Oi, Remus--a word?"

Professor Lupin emerged swiftly, Ginny seeing past him her Slytherin yearmates all looking various stages of disgruntled at the course material and at the fact it looked as though Ginny and Emeryth wouldn't be joining them in tedious torture going over and over countercurses to the more fun hexes and curses they'd learned at their mother's knee. The ones, Ginny though with amusement as Julia pitched her book at Osiris' head, that they knew there was no sufficient countermeasure to, the only thing to do was avoid being hit by whatever curse--Osiris had ducked back out of the way and tossed his own textbook at Julia--retaliate, and--Lupin turned back to glower at the Slytherins only to see Julia and Osiris peacefully at work taking notes with reference to each other's books--not be caught in the act.

"I don't know if I can justify..." Lupin said reproachfully to Victoria, trailing off to let her agree that of course his class shouldn't be the one time was taken out of, that Victoria would find another time for Ginny and Em to do their research in.

"Honestly, it's as much to keep them out of trouble as anything else," Victoria admitted, gesturing for them to step back a little. They did and she nodded in approval, continuing in a hushed tone that they could hear anyway. "Ginny's switched to Slytherin, you know, and she's devoting even more time in the pursuit of academic excellence now that...well, Granger...Ginny's been improving and I think there's a little jealousy. You've seen Ginny's improvement yourself, don't you think she's fully up to date in your class?"

"Well, yes..." Lupin admitted, looking at Ginny with his wolf-eyes, studying her as though his mind wanted to rip hers apart and see what made her tick, made her special--and then looking at Emeryth. "Why her... friend, though?"

"Not far behind Ginny in your class, equal in mine...it's a topic that intersects neatly between our subjects. Dumbledore's looking too closely at them. Thought I'd find something for them to do before they're called onto the carpet again. That'n if you want, they could give you a list of reference-materials they used when they're done. Could give you a nice insight you'd not have come across yourself."

"Ravenclaws. Typical," he commented on Victoria's attitude, but he nodded in acceptance. "Your reasoning's not terminally unsound, I can see the method to your madness."

"Brilliant," Victoria waved them back within 'hearing range', pulling the restricted section pass out of her pocket and passing it to Lupin. "Sign. Two authorities is better than one."

He accepted it with grace, raising his eyebrows at the reason she'd stated--a simple 'research' with no further detail--but signed anyway, handing the pass to Ginny. "I'd be interested to hear anything you've found--within a week or so, say? And now I must get back to the snakes in my class--they already know near as much as I do on the subject, it's difficult to keep them busy for ten minutes at a stretch. Bye, Victoria--Ginny, Emeryth."

"Professor Lupin," she and Emeryth nodded their thanks, Victoria just waved, and they departed from the corridor leading to Lupin's classroom.

"Not a bad sort," Victoria commented lightly in regards to the professor they had just left, her arithmancy working for silence spinning up around them once more. "Should have been one of us, but I think Gryffindors were thin on the ground that year. Too many offed when Voldemort started making his bid, pathetic attempt to keep Gryffindor strong, tragically erroneous Sorting."

"The hat really does make mistakes?"

"Judgement errors. You weren't really a Gryffindor, were you?"

"No..." the teacher made an interesting point, she really did. Food for thought.

"And sorry, it looks as if you really are going to have to hit the library for a little. It'll do you good," and there the Ravenclaw came out again, "Look in the mythology shelves of the restricted section. Anything that's got my name, or Selene's, or the Black sisters in the withdrawal slip is worth a read. Ask Irma if you can use a Ravenclaw room, 'cos you, Ginny, look as though you should have a bit of a lie-down."

"Oh, thank you. I am a pale and delicate flower and ought not exert myself in any way."

"Don't be stupid--you're Witch. And if you don't take the time to pull your magic in, or sooner or later someone's going to notice."

"What!" Pull her magic in? Was it showing? What on earth was Victoria on about this time? There were so many things she had left to learn--why couldn't they have told her this _before_ now?

"Hogwarts has so much magic in it that your power is obscured from outside view. If you're leaving for the holidays--if you're planning to go to Hogsmeade any time in the near future, you should make an effort to hide it." Victoria sighed, shaking her head. "Witchsight on. _Look down._"

Doing as she was told, _really_ looking, Ginny saw... and swore.

Victoria was telling the truth, she could see the magic coiled within her; reaching out with snakelike tendrils of blue and green all around her, flickering over Emeryth and the professor, moving with single-minded intensity as it sought and probed the magic in the very walls of Hogwarts, the magic of those around her. _Their_ magic was held firmly beneath their skins, Emeryth's invisible and she only knew it was there by sense, not sight, Victoria's fingertips were overshadowed with green-gold but otherwise her magic was in check, and she... she was... "I'm a bloody tentacle-monster!"

"What you're doing now is a bit rude, to tell the truth," Victoria informed her with a smile. "I'd have noticed the Cthulhu effect earlier but _I_ try to keep Witchsight turned off for the most part, it gets distracting. I'm 'ooo, shiny!' enough as it is now, y'know?"

Ginny nodded, only half-aware of Victoria and Emeryth's hushed conversation in the background, filing it away in her memory for later when she wasn't immediately distracted by an attempt to control herself. Something in her internal struggle must have woken Nidhogg, or the poor serpent was hungry, for he slithered further around her neck, raising his head and speaking quietly, his tongue flicking her earlobe every few words. "No, not like that," he commanded, sounding very sure of himself for a snake that hadn't yet hibernated once. "You can't just sssuck it up, there'sss nowhere for the magic to go."

"Oh, if you're ssso clever, how would _you_ do it?" she snapped, unable to stop herself before the words came out. "Sorry, I didn't mean..."

Nidhogg nudged her gently, snorting in a rather human way as he answered "Underssstood. You mussst coil, like a sssnake. Coil the magicss within you."

His advice was sound, probably the best she could get at the time as magic--one's own, personal magic differed from everyone else's by temperament, strength and vitality despite the 'everyone is just as good as everyone else' theory Dumbledore tried to push on them as a way of minimising anti-mudblood sentiment. Any control-method would have to be individual, and Nidhogg's way _worked_, she found as her magic indeed coiled within her, spinning fast as a whirlwind over and over that she could see, even with her eyes closed, more than she had thought of in her wildest power-hungry dreams, wrapping around her innermost spark of power, layers upon layers of magic until she was punch-drunk on it.

Eventually she recalled that she was standing in a third-floor corridor, one without classrooms in use but nonetheless anything _but_ the place to take a private moment, Ginny opened her eyes once more. Witchsight most emphatically on--and she looked normal. As normal as Emeryth or Victoria, with her magic drawn back into herself, lurking beneath her skin until she needed it. It lurked at her fingertips, just as Victoria's did, and she could _use_ it that way...

A thought occurred to her in that moment and she reached up, sketching the same rune into the air that Blaise had used the night before.

"Oh, _bugger!_" Vector cursed, grabbing their hands and tugging them away from the symbol that quivered in the air. As they dashed toward the stairs, jumping over the rail, a wall of water followed them, thunderously loud and more menacing than the worst storm--

But they landed hard on one of the moving staircases, Ginny off-balance and saved from a roll down to the first floor only by the intervening hand of Emeryth, all three of them sufficiently far from the water that it cascaded down in front of them, flooding the bottom floor.

"You might," Victoria muttered calmly as she dispelled the silence ward for good and dug out her cigarettes, as Peeves zoomed in from higher levels called down by the chaos running rampant, "want to be more careful in future."

"Oooooh!" Peeves shouted, spinning around them like a short and demented top. "Look what--" he paused a moment to assess who they were, and Victoria flung the nigh-full box of cigarettes at the poltergeist with a hiss for him to take the fall, they'd reckon the balance that night. Peeves caught the box easily a half-second before it would have hit him in the head, and once more began to spin around the hall in ever-widening circles, chanting with renewed vigour, "--_I_ did! Look what _I _did!"

"Now let's get the hell out of here," Victoria pointed toward the library with one hand, the other sketching a tumult of numbers and symbols that whirled around her alone in a tight spiral. "Go. If I don't return to her now, Sel will be spitting tacks. Seeya 'round."

With that order, when they turned and pelted the rest of the way downstairs as though their heels were aflame, Victoria disappeared.

"_Must_ get her to teach us that one," Emeryth said with one last backward glance as Ginny hauled the library door open, both of them slipping in _quickly_ as heavy footfalls sounded from the direction they had fled.

"_Oh_ yes."

* * *

"Strategic murder, of course. There are a regrettable number of self-styled heroes," Tom explained with a dismissive snort at the thought of the two most annoying thorns currently in his side, although they didn't yet know it, "and most of them would be less than content with our vision of a new world order." 

"I quite understand. I've seen a number of them who enter my shop to purchase a wand...and there, I was thinking, I might be of quite some use to the cause," Ollivander stretched comfortably on the small sofa that was just around the corner and out of sight from the inside of his shop, cracking his knuckles in a way that would be particularly menacing to one of less strong disposition, for all that he was a man of four hundred and thirty six years. "The wand chooses the wizard...but the wand also remembers its maker."

"You have a deviously cunning mind, Mr. Ollivander. What _would_ you have them do?"

"Why, thank you, Mr. Riddle. I was thinking something along the lines of spontaneous wand combustion, as a matter of fact."

"Which would quite ruin their chances, if I'm not mistaken?" Few of those on the 'light' side had the mental discipline to learn purer magic, whether it be the small spells one could do sans wand if the will was strong enough, or magic by the old ways--runes, arithmancy, blood and tears. Few, if any. Which reminded him... "The Ancient Runes professor at Hogwarts--and the Arithmancy one. Do you know if they're likely to oppose us?"

"Ah, no. I'm acquainted with both girls... Ravenclaws of our sort. They're too young to have been involved in Voldemort's campaign, but they've no anti-Slytherin sentiment as some of the _very_ young do. The Arithmancy professor's with a Slytherin and the Runes is easily-bribeable with shiny artefacts."

"Should I see if they can be swayed to our cause?" Tom asked lightly, examining the chair in which he sat as though his question was but an idle thought instead of the actual concern that it was. Polished rosewood that matched the sofa, heavy shot silk from the orient in a rippling blue-green shade, lightly embroidered with iridescent thread, more interesting to look at than one would think from first glance--

"Winning them would not be difficult, in my opinion." Ollivander looked thoughtful, almost curiously so. "You could take them. The Malfoys, now, they were...very firm supporters of yourself, even after Voldemort's fall--however, they were not stupid. Narcissa's silver tongue kept herself, her husband and nearly fifty others out of Azkaban, and they had to pay for that freedom after Voldemort's resurrection. That they had not suffered the full thirteen years was seen as disloyalty from what Death Eater gossip says. They've fallen into disgrace."

"Punished for having the intellect not to get locked up in Azkaban? I had realised Lord Voldemort had lost his brain, but not to such an extent. I'd prefer free agents to aid me rather than devoted and crazed followers locked up with soul-sucking creatures."

"And that brings me to Narcissa's sister, Bellatrix Lestrange," Ollivander smiled wryly.

"...yes?" he prompted.

"She took much of the blame for her sister's misdeeds and went to Azkaban for that as well as torturing the Longbottom family past the point of insanity."

"Impressive." Mad, but impressive. The woman had to have known the risks she took, the chance that she would get the Dementor's Kiss instead of a lifetime sentence--first-degree torture, and Slytherins knew how to torture, was enough to get one kissed as a menace to society. Then she claimed responsibility for the actions of her sister, saving the other woman from sharing her fate?

"Her loyalty was not rewarded. One and a half years after Voldemort's second rise she still languishes in Azkaban."

Ollivander had a reason for telling him this, of course. Their conversation wasn't the idle roaming thing it might seem to an unwitting eavesdropper, although the area they were in was bespelled for sound not escaping and thus an eavesdropper was impossible. Every word, every sentence was pure information exchange. "You believe I can gain her loyalty for myself, as my older, crazier self has forgotten what he owes?"

"I think, with a little work, you could do so." Ollivander frowned at the tinkle of his doorbell, and rose with a speed that belied his age. "If you will excuse me a few moments?"

Tom nodded, and Ollivander left him to his musings.

The Malfoys were Ollivander's first thought of likely allies for him, and it had been with their assistance that he had come back to life. Virginia had done the work but they had returned the diary to her in the first place, they had to have some idea what she would do. Narcissa Malfoy, from what little he knew of her, was one of the sharper knives in society's back--she would realise that a sixteen year old girl wanted more than a diary to talk to, and she would realise _he_ wouldn't twiddle his thumbs and lounge about in book form when there was a chance he could have something more.

Lucius Malfoy had been one of his other self's most trusted men before that self's fall, and his demotion in status had to rankle. If Lucius was a clever man, and Tom had to assume he was, then he had to see that Tom stood a greater chance of success than Voldemort, and the odds were that Lucius had as equal a hand in returning him to Virginia as his wife had. Was Lucius, however, a pragmatic man?

And their son, Draco. Virginia knew more about the boy than he did--she had yet to say anything _bad_ about him. Arrogant, but rightfully so, charming, but not a patch on Tom. Affianced to Pansy Parkinson who likely had some pull with her own family to be granted such an advantageous match. The girl was also--involved--with a Ravenclaw, another tie to the Eyrie-dwellers. If he chose the right people for his inner circle, and just happened to tug... with the domino effect, who knew how many would end up firmly within his camp?

Then there was the sister of Narcissa, probably married into the Dark Arts-favouring Lestrange family unless that was their maiden name. Loyalty seemed to be one of her strong points, and if he could win that loyalty...

"You might also inquire about a matter of a... personal nature when you meet Narcissa," Ollivander spoke as he re-entered the little sitting-area. "I can't really say any more on that, as I know none of the details, and a misinterpreted fragment of the truth is worse than no further information at this date." 

"Acceptable." A matter of a personal nature? What on earth? If it was that his other self was the real father of Draco, and owed some seventeen years of child support, he would not be impressed--no. Impossible. It was simply too wrong.

* * *

"This way," Blaise murmured, gesturing impatiently to the small group of Slytherins and Ravenclaws following her as she followed the tiny green ball of light that floated above her hand--followed it to her sister, who _ought_ to be with Ginny unless something was very wrong. They were skipping lunch to hunt down the fifth years, and if she was leading her yearmates up the garden path, they wouldn't be terribly happy. But the library wasn't an impossible place for Emeryth to hide out, and it was deserted the first twenty minutes of lunchtime almost _always..._

Unless one was hiding.

They stopped at the door to the second Ravenclaw room of the library, Padma nipping forward and placing her palm flat on the door, and it swung open. Beyond them, leaning over the table, were their quarry.

"Ginny? It's time we had a little talk."

The taller redhead turned, gazed at Draco as the one who had spoken whilst they all filed in. "About?" she asked, her voice trembling ever so slightly.

The door shut behind them, and Draco answered, "Tom Riddle."


End file.
